Freelance journalist wins 2015 Carolle Bourne Award

KWAME SLUSHER, a young freelance journalist currently residing in Australia, is the winner of The Carolle Bourne Award for Literary Innovation for 2015.

Slusher took the award for his short story “How to Draw Her,”  which plays with perceptions of art, desire and relationships.  

His mother and brother accepted his trophy, an original creation by Jamal Ifill of Crystal Forms, and a cheque for $500.00 on his behalf at the National Cultural Foundation's West Terrace office in early December.  

The Carolle Bourne Award recognizes a work of prose, poetry, or a play that best demonstrates artistic innovation, be it technical, thematic, interdisciplinary, or other.  The award is sponsored by ArtsEtc and US-based Barbadian author Ronald A. Williams, and administered by the National Cultural Foundation in Bourne's memory.

Originally from St Vincent, Carolle Bourne (1937-2012) moved to Trinidad as a young woman and enjoyed a career composing advertizing copy before going on to journalism in the United States, where she divided her time between caring for her two sons and writing fashion promotions for Lit’s of Philadelphia and Gimbels of New York.  After returning to the Caribbean in 1974, she settled in Barbados, and concentrated on short fiction, poetry, and art reviews for the local press.  A keen supporter of culture, and well-known and respected across the visual arts and literary arts communities in Barbados, she was always on the sharp lookout for things new and different, trying to see who was putting an unusual or fresh spin on creativity—no matter the genre.  

She was the author of Saraband (The Incomplete Works of Caroline Ravenspeare) (2003), which was shortlisted for the Frank Collymore Award in 2001 and won The Kamau Brathwaite Award for Poetry in 2002.

Apart from interests in writing and photography, Slusher is the editor of the GRC Professional.  He was also the recipient of a Prime Minister's Scholarship, given to a gold awardee between the age of 16 and 40  who "demonstrate[s] the greatest potential for training and development."  

This is the second year The Carolle Bourne Award has been given.  Adrienne Callender won the award in 2014 for her poem “Transhood,” published alongside other excellent work in the just released The ArtsEtc Winning Words Anthology: NIFCA 2013/2014.