In a ceremony at New York University on February 20, 2018, Barbadian poet Kamau Brathwaite will receive the PEN/Voelcker Award for Poetry from PEN America. The award is described as follows:

The PEN/Voelcker Award for Poetry is given in even-numbered years to a poet whose distinguished and growing body of work represents a notable and accomplished presence in American literature. The poet honored by the award is one whom expanded the scope of American poetry, and who continues to mature with each successive volume of poetry. They receive a stipend of $5,000 after being chosen by a panel of three to five poets or writers whose tastes and knowledge of contemporary American poetry are wide-ranging and thorough.

The award panel comprised Ed Roberson, Natalie Scenters-Zapico, and Ocean Vuong. The citation reads: “For his omnivorously synthetic, insistently local, sinuously syncopated, and consistently exciting work, including Elegguas, Born to Slow Horses, and Ancestors.”

More details here.

From the organizers:

The Kingston Book Festival (KBF) is the flagship event of the Book Industry Association of Jamaica (BIAJ) that promotes reading and literacy as tools for national development and community transformation. The Festival takes place over eight days, March 4-11, 2018, at venues across the city of Kingston and culminates with the Kingston Book Fair on Sunday March 11 at Hope Gardens.

This year, KBF has been recognised as an official event under the year-long #Kingston145 celebration recognising city status for the Caribbean’s premier creative capital. The festival schedule includes free events such as readings, school tours, workshops, book launches, book parties and industry exhibits.

Follow the KBF on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KingstonBookFestival/

Thu, Mar 15, 2018, 01:00 PM – 08:00 PM, The Center for the Humanities, CUNY

From the organizers:

This conference explores the production of literature and the visual arts by contemporary artists and writers in Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and their diasporas. This event explores collaboration and intermingling within the current production of literature and the visual arts in both countries and in the diaspora. It will contribute to an essential, growing intellectual discourse about Hispañola and its diaspora in the United States.

More details here.

Announcing the launch of Pree: Caribbean. Writing. which is a unique online platform featuring contemporary writing from the Caribbean (http://preelit.com). Twice a year, we will publish original works of fiction, non-fiction, poetry, essays, interviews and experimental writing, giving our authors international visibility far beyond the islands. Our range is wide, from literature, art and politics, to gender, technology, race and popular culture. The first issue is being curated under the timely theme “Crossroads” and will go live in April 2018. In Jamaica, we say “pree dis” when we want to call careful attention to something new. So, pree our website and learn more about us.

Derek Walcott (1930-2017) – With the rest of the world and especially the Caribbean literary community, JWIL mourns the extinguishing of the light of Derek Walcott. In the words of Kei Miller, “Walcott is one of only a handful of poets for whom the superlative will always be insufficient. He was, quite simply, the great poet of the Caribbean and then beyond. He once told me that poetry was not a democracy. It was, instead, a kingdom and not everyone could enter it. If that is true, we should fly the flag at half mast, because the king is dead.”

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/mar/17/nobel-laureate-poet-and-playwright-derek-walcott-dead-aged-87

Call For Papers for Anthology on Children’s and Young Adult Literature of the Caribbean and its Diaspora – This anthology aims to cultivate and create a space for exploring the history and current state of children’s literature and culture in the Caribbean and its diaspora. The editors invite scholars, teachers, creative writers, online journalists, and activists to consider how literature and the creative arts written or produced for young audiences contribute to the identity of the Caribbean and function as an integral part of its history, culture, and educational system.

Please send abstracts of 500 words and a brief biography by June 1, 2017 to Betsy Nies (ude.fnu@seinb) and Melissa Garcia Vega (ude.rpu@4aicrag.assilem). If accepted, complete rough drafts of 5000 to 7000 words will be due by November 1, 2017.

Full details at http://www.unf.edu/coas/english/Call_for_Papers.aspx

We at JWIL extend condolences to the family, friends and students of Dr. Giselle Rampaul, a Lecturer in Literatures in English at the University of the West Indies, St. Augustine campus. Her untimely passing robs the Caribbean community of an influential teacher and scholar. Dr. Rampaul was a leading expert on Caribbean re-readings of Shakespeare. She was also the founder and producer of “The Spaces between Words: Conversations with Writers” podcast series which has released interviews with ninety-seven writers and poets to date.  Jeremy Poynting of Peepal Tree Press writes, “One of Giselle’s lasting contributions to the building of an infrastructure for writing in the Caribbean was as the founder and producer of The Spaces between Words: Conversations with Writers podcast series. This gave writers an endorsement they appreciated, brought their books to the attention of a wider circle of readers and left a valuable archive of sensitive and probing interviews for future generations.”

http://www.guardian.co.tt/news/2017-02-10/uwi-mourns-lecturer-dies-suddenly

Condolences pour in after death of UWI lecturer Giselle Rampaul

JWIL extends hearty congratulations to David Scott of Small Axe who has been recognized by the Council of Editors of Learned Journals as the winner of its Distinguished Editor prize. David will be awarded the prize at the 2017 Modern Language Association convention in Philadelphia.

Please note that some print back issues of the journal are available for sale and that full back issues and individual articles are available in digital format from ProQuest.