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2001 • I leave the newspaper I was working at with a baby in my belly, a plan in my head and a rough blueprint in my hand. I call my co-conspirator, Robert Edison Sandiford (who had already left the newspaper), and a few weeks later we convene a session of like-minded souls to see how a newsletter called ArtsEtc might get off the ground. We meet at my home (chowing down on a mean chow mein and some fried flying fish to fuel the flood of ideas) and again, later, in a back room at Queen’s Park Gallery.
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2002 • Robert has a short story called “Outside the Blue Horizon.” It is set at a hotel in Rockley on the south coast and it is that self-same hotel where ArtsEtc secured one of its first major advertisers—Gems of Barbados, which owned the hotel. I remember leaving the premises after that meeting feeling I was walking on cloud because advertising, marketing, sales, PR—all of that — is NOT my hat, but I was wearing it that day, firmly and fiercely—outside the Blue Horizon!
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2003 • The first ever print issue of ArtsEtc: The Premier Guide to Barbados comes hot off the presses at Calton Printing, Christ Church, Barbados. This picture of me checking the galleys of that first issue still gives me butterflies and proud momma vibes. I felt I’d just given birth to something. And I had!
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2004 • We officially launch ArtsEtc a year after the first issue with a gathering at the Waterfront Café, paying tribute to contributors, advertisers, supporters, partners and main patron the National Art Gallery Committee (NAGC). The event is hosted by Katy Gash, then Literary Arts Officer at the National Cultural Foundation (NCF), another of our early and loyal supporters, as was the Waterfront Café, now sadly closed.
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2004 • Issue No. 11/The No-Nonsense Poetry Issue comes out in November/December. It features a provocative cover illustration by Ewan Atkinson with the headline “Licences under review,” a stinging analysis of the poetry landscape in Barbados by teacher and commentator Mark Selman, and a forthright editorial from future Poet Laureate Esther Phillips. Issue No. 11 raises some hackles. It remains one of my all-round favourite issues.
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2005 • Issue No. 16/Art Education II. This issue features “The Nines,” a philosophical and practical, 9-point how-to for creatives written especially for ArtsEtc by Kamau Brathwaite and delivered in his hallmark nation language. In his introduction, he says:
“Let me confess I don’t have a cue about the object. i’m only strugglin to do what i can. because of my admiration for what ARTS ETC stands for. and w/v little secular wealth. but great spirit & elan. is achieving for the arts in baJAm…”
Thereafter, as the Summer Storyteller, I take “The Nines” into schools, use it as a teaching tool.
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2006 • A great year for ArtsEtc at the Frank Collymore Literary Awards, or Collys. Its two founding editors and consulting editor Nailah Folami Imoja do the 1-2-3 at the annual awards. A sweet moment and memory.
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2007 • ArtsEtc introduces its imprint AE Books and publishes Shouts from the Outfield: The ArtsEtc Cricket Anthology after a conversation in a Broad Street bar in which the editors bemoan the lack of any single resource housing examples of Barbadian writing about cricket. The anthology is launched at the Spirit Bond, Bridgetown, and features writing by Ikael Tafari, Sir Hilary Beckles, Paul Keens-Douglas, and Austin Clarke, among others.
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2008 • We stage the first ever ArtsEtc Green Readings in collaboration with the Ministry of the Environment. The al fresco event runs every June for eight years and features writers and artists across multiple disciplines in celebration of Environment Month. Still the coolest literary lime ever!
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2009 • The 25th and final print edition of ArtsEtc comes off the presses (roughly two years and five issues after the editors planned to stop). Entitled Word Power: The Gone Fishin’ Issue, it marks the beginning of the transition to an online presence.
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2011 • ArtsEtc partners with the NCF to produce a series of Winning Words anthologies featuring medalling work from the annual Goddard’s NIFCA Literary Arts Competition. Five anthologies are produced from 2011 to 2020 with the final publication spanning lockdown and containing powerful work inspired by the COVID pandemic and Black Lives Matter protests.
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2011 • The ArtsEtc Independence Reading List, or IndyList, a brainchild of editor Robert’s, is launched. An annual suggestion of 12 Barbadian books to read throughout the year, the list forms the springboard for ArtsEtc’s Mapping Our Literature project, which also includes its literacy outreach programmes and plans for a general Barbadian anthology. (January 2023 marks the 12th edition of the IndyList, which, for the first time, includes an online school’s study guide, and brings the grand running total of books recommended by ArtsEtc to…drum roll, please…144!)
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2013 • AE Books launches Green Readings: The First Five Years (2008-2012), an anthology and record of all Green Readings up to that point, and—hurrah!—the new dedicated website, www.artsetcbarbados.com, is up and running.
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2014 • ArtsEtc partners with poet Esther Phillips to stage the Bridgetown Literary Tours. The tour launches during the second Bim Literary Festival and Book Fair, organised by Writers Ink, a collective established by Phillips in 2005 and of which Robert and I are founding members. The tour takes passengers on a journey of classic and new Barbadian literature associated with landmarks in Bridgetown and its historic Garrison.
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2015 • ArtsEtc establishes Read2Me!-Write4Me!, its schools literary/literacy initiative, with funding and support from Days Books, Oxford University Press and Apex Eye Clinic. The program brings together teams of storytellers and tutors, and kicks off at three primary schools, later involving secondary schools and communities. Created and driven by myself, Read2Me! Write4Me! operates in tandem with my Summer Storyteller program.
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May 2015 • Kamau 85, a perpetual online exhibition of word, sound and image dedicated to Kamau Brathwaite and marking his 85th birthday, is curated and published by ArtsEtc, following a conversation with instigator and consulting editor John Robert Lee of Saint Lucia. It features work by contributors from all over the world. For the duration of the exhibition’s planning and production, a large orb weaver [fact check] lurks in the lime tree outside editor Deane’s work-station window. As soon as the exhibition goes live, the spider vanishes. Can anyone say Anansi? How about Nansetoura?
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2016 • A final Green Readings is staged at Pelican Village, Bridgetown, featuring writers Mark (Ark) Ramsay, Katherine Tafari, Khalid Batson, musicians AfroKoustyx, and visual artist and ArtsEtc intern Shakeel Clarke. It is hosted by spoken word artist Keoma Mallett, aka RhyMinister, and co-produced by poet DJ Simmons. The event coincides with my birthday—with Robert, Keoma and DJ also celebrating theirs in June. Cake all round!
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2022 • ArtsEtc continues to cement its partnership with the Frank Collymore Literary Endowment Committee and UWI Cave Hill’s Literature Department to take its Mapping Our Literature program to the next level.
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February 2023 • ArtsEtc engages its fourth intern, Barbados Community College graphic design student Akaila Armstrong, who produces much work in four short weeks, including illustrations for the website and two 20th anniversary logos, of which we are extremely fussy!
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June 2023 • ArtsEtc launches its 20th Anniversary Chapbook Series, the first of which is Girl Before Country by spoken word artist Cyndi Celeste, produced for her to take to the Marché de la poésie in Paris, France, June 7-11, where she represented Barbados.
And one to grow on…
The child who was in my belly as we plotted in 2001, Izora, is now 21 and steadily establishing herself as an artist and art-space curator in Barbados. She cut her teeth on attending and helping to produce ArtsEtc events. Meanwhile, I celebrate a 60th year on the planet this year. In looking back, I look forward and raise a cup to the future—for ArtsEtc, my daughter and me.
