Monique Roffey, the Costa-winning author of The Mermaid of Black Conch, on the lit-boom that’s happening on the Caribbean islandLast week, Trinidadian writer Lisa Allen-Agostini’s novel The Bread the Devil Knead landed a coveted spot on the Women’s prize shortlist. As a fellow Trinidadian writer, this is both exciting and unsurprising. These days Trinidad is producing world-class female writers hand over fist. Allen-Agostini’s shortlisting comes on the heels of the announcement, two weeks ago, that Trinidadian writer Amanda Smyth had made the Walter Scott prize for historical fiction shortlist, the only woman on the list, and the first Caribbean writer ever to be chosen. Meanwhile, Celeste Mohammed has become the fifth woman (and third Trinidadian woman) to win Trinidad’s regional OCM Bocas prize.Something has happened in Trinidad, in our small but dense hothouse of a literary world. Perhaps it’s 12 years of the Bocas literary festival, or five waves of feminism, or maybe it’s to do with the internet opening up opportunities for those from developing countries, but in the last decade Trinidad has produced a host of outstanding female writers. It’s a trend that anyone in Caribbean literary circles knows about. Myself, Smyth, Allen-Agostini, Mohammed and others are part of a “lit-boom”, and most of this boom is female. We are finding ourselves on the global stage, on prestigious shortlists in North America and the UK. This huge generational and gender shift would have been... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'
[ The Guardian | 2022-05-03 13:03:34 UTC ]
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The giraffe or elephant main character in your children's book is probably male. Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2022-01-20 14:26:39 UTC ]
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Andrew Lipstein’s entertaining debut novel mines comedy from an aspiring author’s ethically questionable path to publication. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2022-01-19 10:00:00 UTC ]
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The ’90s are back, as if they could ever truly peace out. Between Fear Street and Captain Marvel and the Alanis Morissette musical, the last mostly-offline decade is getting a gargantuan nostalgia polish. For my memoir Sticker—an exploration of my childhood in Charlottesville, Virginia via 20... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2022-01-14 12:00:00 UTC ]
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More than 300 prominent writers and publishers including Bernardine Evaristo, Alan Hollinghurst and Malorie Blackman have signed a letter to the Times opposing the Police, Crime, Sentencing & Courts Bill, which is being voted on in the House of Lords over the next two weeks. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2022-01-13 12:40:06 UTC ]
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Roxane Gay is launching a new one-year fellowship programme which will see her support three aspiring writers. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2022-01-12 16:04:26 UTC ]
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How book-loving communities on social media are helping authors break barriers to become bestsellersTalia Hibbert was rewatching a Spider-Man film and eating a meal in her living room when she received life-changing news. Her romance novel Act Your Age, Eve Brown, which she wrote at the... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2021-12-30 08:00:44 UTC ]
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‘On Girlhood,’ edited by Glory Edim, pulls together the work of Toni Morrison, Alice Walker and more. Continue reading at The Washington Post
[ The Washington Post | 2021-12-23 12:00:13 UTC ]
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Waterstones is partnering with the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award to celebrate the best emerging talent in the UK and Ireland, hosting exclusive accompanying content across all its channels. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2021-12-20 08:28:44 UTC ]
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Eight new writers have been chosen to join this year's Penguin Random House UK’s WriteNow mentoring programme, with a focus on children's writers. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2021-12-15 07:50:03 UTC ]
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The Festival for Working-Class Writers' team are on the lookout for books to promote as part of their new book club, which launches in 2022. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2021-12-08 23:43:53 UTC ]
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Sarah Maycock has won the 2021 ALCS Educational Writers’ Award for her children's book Sometimes I Feel: A Menagerie of Feelings Big and Small (Big Picture Press.) Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2021-12-07 22:38:06 UTC ]
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Mathelinda Nabugodi has won the £10,000 Deborah Rogers Foundation Writers Award for her "engaging and fascinating" work of non-fiction. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2021-12-07 20:28:37 UTC ]
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The main character in “The Lyrics” is his best friend and fiercest rival, John Lennon Continue reading at The Economist
[ The Economist | 2021-12-04 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The Northern Writers’ Awards has opened for submissions with a chance to win a share of £40,000 in development opportunities as former winner Benjamin Myers (pictured) launches a new short story category. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2021-12-03 20:45:57 UTC ]
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Journalist Philip Clark and novelist and essayist Javier Montes have been named as the winners of the Eccles Centre & Hay Festival Writer’s Award, at a reception at the British Library. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2021-12-01 10:40:51 UTC ]
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Yasmine Awwad, Sophie Meadows and Mathelinda Nabugodi have been shortlisted for the Deborah Rogers Foundation Writers Award, chosen from 983 entries this year. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2021-12-01 09:27:14 UTC ]
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The London Library is releasing its second anthology featuring work from its Emerging Writers programme. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2021-12-01 01:29:13 UTC ]
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Substack is starting a "concerted push" to bring more UK based writers to the platform, and has appointed Farrah Storr as a new head of partnerships for the region. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2021-11-30 08:13:23 UTC ]
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A free workshop for writers of colour is being organised by The Society of Children's Book Writers & Illustrators (SCBWI). Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2021-11-22 20:37:24 UTC ]
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