Bocas hosts writing workshops

Carol Mitchell
Carol Mitchell

Workshops and industry conversations through November and December round off the year for the Bocas Lit Fest.

To mark its tenth year of building literary capacity in the Caribbean, the NGO has been offering a steady, mixed programme of free and paid writing workshops.

On November 12, the NGC Bocas Lit Fest hosts the first of two interactive online workshops with St Kitts & Nevis-born author Carol Mitchell, guiding participants through the fundamentals of writing dialogue and point of view. In the second, on November 19, Mitchell shares insights for spotting and addressing common errors in participants’ manuscripts, said a media release.

Both workshops are ideal for fiction and non-fiction writers and guarantee one-on-one feedback with Mitchell, who, in addition to having written 18 books for children of all ages (three of which are forthcoming from HarperCollins), is the founder of Caribbean Reads Publishing.

Alex Wheatle

Part of the ongoing Bocas Lit Fest How to series for emerging and aspiring writers, these workshops provide access to more of the tools, tricks and tips of their trade from the experts. The sessions with Mitchell can still be booked. To learn more and register, visit bocaslitfest.com/writerscentre/workshops.

Consistent with its writer development thrust, the NGC Bocas Lit Fest recently launched Lit’s Be Real, a brand new, free, online conversation series and aimed at connecting Caribbean writers with a range of independent industry professionals abroad.

Hosted by Amanda Choo Quan, winner of the 2020 Johnson and Amoy Achong Caribbean Writers Prize, which develops new writing talent, Lit’s Be Real offers frank, solution-oriented discussions with editors, educators, agents and more. The remaining three instalments of the four-part series, livestreamed on the Bocas Facebook page, are set for November 18, December 2, and December 16, at 6 pm.

Founder and director of the Bocas Lit Fest Marina Salandy-Brown said in the release, “All of what we do and how we do it is predicated on the understanding of who the beneficiaries are and the need to achieve our goal of creating greater access for Caribbean people to a vast and dynamic literary world. And one of the most successful ways in which we’ve demonstrated our place in this work in this tumultuous year is through the creation of our signature interview series, Bios & Bookmarks."

Tamika Gibson 

The third season of the NGC Bocas Lit Fest Bios & Bookmarks, is back to ride out 2020 in high literary style. Since its November 1 premier with St Lucian-born, Canada-based prize-winning poet Canisia Lubrin, with her second collection of poems The Dyzgraphxst, the series has featured TT author and 2016 winner of the CODE Burt Award for Caribbean YA Literature Tamika Gibson, with her forthcoming novel Off Track.

Also in the line-up for this season is the winner of the Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize, Alex Wheatle, whose new young adult novel Cane Warriors (Akashic Books) unfurls the momentous events of Tacky’s War in 1760s Jamaica.

The six-part weekly series continues every Sunday through December 6 at 3 pm local time, and is free on the Bocas Lit Fest Facebook page.

For more info on Bocas Lit Fest programmes and activities: bocaslitfest.com, follow @bocaslitfest, or call 222-7099.

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