Linda M. Deane 2020 Frank Collymore Literary Award Winner

2020 Frank Collymore Literary Award winner Linda M. Deane.  Photo Copyright © 2021.

 

THE 23rd FRANK COLLYMORE LITERARY AWARDS were presented entirely virtually for the first time on February 14, 2021. Because of COVID-19 restrictions, the ceremony was aired via a live stream that used prerecorded readings by the winners in various locations across the island.  

All of the winners were poets this year, with the Prime Minister’s Award going to a prose writer for a YA novel.  

Winning Words: How the One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her House 

 


Chapter 4

THEY ARE ADMIRING Baby that night everything changes. They are quietly claiming things about her to the soundtrack of Adan’s cooing—in deference to the mystery of her mother’s name. Lala claims Baby’s nose, the way the little legs turn gently inward at the knees before repelling each other, the elegant triple-jointed toes. Adan claims her long torso, the flat, broad bones beneath her face, the way her upper lip retreats when she smiles.  

“Just like Penny,” says Adan.  “Penny daughter self.”

The 2020 IndyList

THE ArtsEtc Independence Reading List has reached a milestone: it's now in its tenth edition!

The IndyList, as we like to call it, is a selection of 12 Barbadian books to make friends with over the coming year.

Winning Words: Ode to the Bajan Blackbirds

 

BARBADOS' FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY celebrations come and gone and nobody ain’t say yuh cat, yuh dog, ’bout we. Sometimes yuh have to wonder if we is Bajan, too. Gabby had to tell Jack dat the beach belong to he, but it is time that we tell we story.  These fields and skies ’bout here belong to we!  We father get we here. We mother hatch we here. And here belongs to we. 

Winning Words: Taming Dragons in a Soup Bowl

 

A bunch of surfer dudes,
sun-bleached blonde and sun-browned,
inch their way across the rocky shore,
Soup Bowl bound,
tentative as firewalkers
treading unshod on red coals.

Then, with jaws firmly set,
breasts pressed to boards,
these knights of the sea
paddle fearlessly forward, 
to face the fabled dragon waves,
whose lair is the Soup Bowl. 

Winning Words: Home

 

When he comes  
He waits patiently by the door. 
He knocks softly. 
Gently.
He asks,
May I come in? 
Are you at home? 
Is now a good time? 

Winning Words...And Saving Lives

Casting out again.  This edition's cover is by Kai Miller.  

 

A version of the following speech was presented by ArtsEtc Editor Robert Edison Sandiford at the launch of The ArtsEtc NIFCA Winning Words Anthology 2017/2018 held at the Daphne Joseph-Hackett Theatre November 14, 2019.

GOOD EVENING, ladies and gentlemen, artists and patrons, art sponsors and art angels.

I suspect what I’m about to say will sound a little like a vote of thanks.   This is, maybe more so than in past years, inevitable.

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