Lit Fest takes aim at book design

Designer Melanie Archer will lead the NGC Bocas Lit Fest seminar on How to Make Your Book Look Good. -
Designer Melanie Archer will lead the NGC Bocas Lit Fest seminar on How to Make Your Book Look Good. -

Designer Melanie Archer will lead the NGC Bocas Lit Fest seminar on How to Make Your Book Look Good. The event will highlight the ways that art, design and writing intersect.

Noting that books are judged by their covers, the Lit Fest said Caribbean writers have reason to pay attention to book design more so the intrinsic value of indigenous design.

"In the age of competitive online marketing, self-publishing, social media, bookstagrammers and bestselling lists, books are judged by their covers. Also, as people turn increasingly to entrepreneurial pursuits during the covid19 pandemic, the number of self-published authors continues to rise and so do the merits of eye-catching covers. But Caribbean writers have another reason to pay attention to book design – the intrinsic value of indigenous design, celebrating the modern Caribbean aesthetic," the Lit Fest said in a media release.

Archer will bring her teaching knowledge and her multi-disciplinary experiences across art, design, writing and editing to the seminar on June 26. Archer is a freelance graphic designer, partner/editor at Robert & Christopher Publishers, co-founder of Design Objective, and part-time lecturer at UWI, St Augustine campus. She also writes on art, design, and culture, and is the co-editor and author of A to Z of Caribbean Art, celebrating a number of Caribbean artists.

The NGC Bocas Lit Fest’s said its creative writing workshops bring participants into contact with the best facilitators in publishing, language and all aspects of writing, as staples of the annual literary festival. Since 2011,facilitators have delivered 72 different workshops and masterclasses in Trinidad, Tobago, Jamaica, Guyana and St Lucia. Its online workshops are available throughout the year, via Zoom, for established and emerging writers anywhere in the world, and offer feedback and support, the Lit Fest said.

Festival director and founder Marina Salandy-Brown said, “There is real potential to channel our literary and artistic talents into developing the creative economy of the Caribbean, and the Bocas Lit Fest is particularly honoured to partner with some of the finest writers and publishing professionals to help new writers find their voices, and make their passions work, in these precarious times. The quality of the workshops is guaranteed.”

All levels are welcome, with a special masterclass in speculative fiction at the intermediate and advanced levels from August-October, led by Caribbean sci-fi and fantasy writing giants Karen Lord and Tobias Buckell.

For more info on June-December 2021 workshops: www./. bocaslitfest.com/workshops; workshops@bocaslitfest.com.

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"Lit Fest takes aim at book design"

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