The NGC Bo­cas Lit Fest, British Coun­cil, and Com­mon­wealth Writ­ers have an­nounced a new part­ner­ship that will work to­wards en­hanc­ing the Caribbean lit­er­ary scene and help kick-start an in­fra­struc­ture to sup­port writ­ers, writ­ing, and pub­lish­ing. The Caribbean Lit­er­a­ture Ac­tion Group (CALAG) will be launched in Port of Spain at a one-day brain­storm work­shop on April 25, on the eve of the 2012 NGC Bo­cas Lit Fest. The Caribbean has pro­duced some of the world's great­est con­tem­po­rary writ­ers, in­clud­ing three No­bel Prize lau­re­ates. Its lit­er­a­ture is one of the re­gion's most cel­e­brat­ed cul­tur­al prod­ucts.

But Caribbean writ­ers con­tin­ue to mi­grate to North Amer­i­ca and Eu­rope in or­der to ob­tain fi­nan­cial sup­port for their work and to achieve the high­est lev­el of in­ter­na­tion­al recog­ni­tion. Lit­er­ary pub­lish­ing with­in the re­gion re­mains in an em­bry­on­ic state, and tal­ent­ed writ­ers who choose to stay "at home" of­ten find it dif­fi­cult to ac­cess in­ter­na­tion­al pub­lish­ers, or find op­por­tu­ni­ties for lo­cal pub­li­ca­tion and pro­mo­tion. In light of these com­mon in­ter­ests, the British Coun­cil and Com­mon­wealth Writ­ers have now de­vel­oped a plan to work in part­ner­ship with the NGC Bo­cas Lit Fest and oth­er lit­er­ary pro­fes­sion­als in the re­gion. The first stage is to as­sem­ble a small, re­sults-ori­ent­ed ac­tion group of pro­fes­sion­als from all ar­eas of the Caribbean lit­er­ary sec­tor: writ­ers, pub­lish­ers, ed­i­tors, teach­ers, book­sellers, and or­gan­is­ers of fes­ti­vals and writ­ing pro­grammes.

Par­tic­i­pants in­clude pub­lish­ers such as Lin­da Speth of UWI Press and Lasana Sek­ou of House of Ne­he­si; Jus­tine Hen­zell, co-founder of the Cal­abash Lit­er­ary Fes­ti­val in Ja­maica; Es­ther Phillips of the new BIM lit­er­a­ture fes­ti­val in Bar­ba­dos and Grace­lyn Cas­sell of the Al­liougana Fes­ti­val in Montser­rat; Fun­so Aiye­ji­na of the Crop­per Foun­da­tion Writ­ers' Work­shop in T&T; and writ­ers Kei Miller of Ja­maica and Kendel Hip­poly­te of St Lu­cia. In­ter­na­tion­al par­tic­i­pants in­clude El­lah All­frey (deputy ed­i­tor of Gran­ta) and Je­re­my Poynt­ing (Peepal Tree Press). Fa­cil­i­ta­tors for the ac­tion group in­clude Nicholas Laugh­lin, ed­i­tor of The Caribbean Re­view of Books, Lin­da Lei­th, founder of Blue Me­trop­o­lis Bleu in Que­bec, writer Ani­ta Sethi, and Susie Nick­lin, di­rec­tor of Lit­er­a­ture, British Coun­cil.

Or­gan­i­sa­tions' pro­files

The NGC Bo­cas Lit Fest is an an­nu­al lit­er­ary fes­ti­val held in T&T on the last week­end in April. It is the largest lit­er­ary fes­ti­val in the An­glo­phone Caribbean and pro­vides a unique fo­rum for bring­ing in­ter­na­tion­al and Caribbean writ­ers at home and abroad to­geth­er with their read­ers. The fes­ti­val pro­gramme in­cludes read­ings, per­for­mance po­et­ry, dis­cus­sions, de­bates, work­shops, film screen­ings, book launch­es and sign­ings, a chil­dren's pro­gramme, and the pre­sen­ta­tion of the an­nu­al OCM Bo­cas Prize for Caribbean Lit­er­a­ture. www.bo­caslit­fest.com

• The NGC Bo­cas Lit Fest is a non-prof­it or­gan­i­sa­tion that re­ceives sup­port­ing spon­sor­ship from OCM and KFC. Spon­sors in­clude the Com­mon­wealth Foun­da­tion, First Cit­i­zens Bank, Courts Trinidad Lim­it­ed, and flow. The Min­istry of Arts and Mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism, TDC, and NL­CB pro­vide pub­lic fund­ing.

• The British Coun­cil is the UK's in­ter­na­tion­al or­gan­i­sa­tion for ed­u­ca­tion­al op­por­tu­ni­ties and cul­tur­al re­la­tions. The British Coun­cil lit­er­a­ture team works with UK writ­ers, po­ets, and the lit­er­a­ture sec­tor to de­vel­op col­lab­o­ra­tions and high-qual­i­ty events around the world.

• Com­mon­wealth Writ­ers-a World of New Fic­tion-is an on­go­ing cul­tur­al pro­gramme with­in the Com­mon­wealth Foun­da­tion which de­vel­ops, con­nects, and in­spires writ­ers.

By award­ing prizes and run­ning on-the-ground ac­tiv­i­ties, it works in part­ner­ship with in­ter­na­tion­al lit­er­ary or­gan­i­sa­tions, the wider cul­tur­al in­dus­tries, and civ­il so­ci­ety to help writ­ers de­vel­op their craft in the fifty-four coun­tries of the Com­mon­wealth. www.com­mon­wealth­writ­ers.org is a fo­rum where mem­bers from any­where in the world can ex­change ideas and con­tribute to de­bates.

The Com­mon­wealth Foun­da­tion is an in­ter­gov­ern­men­tal or­gan­i­sa­tion fund­ed prin­ci­pal­ly by Com­mon­wealth gov­ern­ments, and guid­ed by Com­mon­wealth val­ues. We aim to strength­en civ­il so­ci­ety in the achieve­ment of Com­mon­wealth pri­or­i­ties in­clud­ing democ­ra­cy, good gov­er­nance, sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment, and cul­tur­al di­ver­si­ty.

quotes

"The NGC Bo­cas Lit Fest was es­tab­lished to pro­mote Caribbean writ­ers and writ­ing. Join­ing forces with the British Coun­cil and Com­mon­wealth Writ­ers, two en­ti­ties ded­i­cat­ed to ad­vanc­ing lit­er­a­ture in many oth­er re­gions of the world, presents a re­al op­por­tu­ni­ty to help push for­ward de­vel­op­ment in the re­gion's pub­lish­ing sec­tor. We are de­light­ed to be able to work with fel­low Caribbean peo­ple who share the same am­bi­tion."

-Ma­ri­na Sa­landy-Brown, Fes­ti­val di­rec­tor/founder, NGC Bo­cas Lit Fest

"The British Coun­cil is priv­i­leged to have been in­vit­ed to join such a dis­tin­guished group to ad­dress is­sues of con­cern, not just to the Caribbean but to writ­ers across the Amer­i­c­as. With the Coun­cil's glob­al re­mit I hope that my ex­pe­ri­ence and ex­per­tise will be help­ful, but I ex­pect to learn far more than I can teach from such vi­brant and ac­com­plished peo­ple."

-Susie Nick­lin, di­rec­tor of Lit­er­a­ture, British Coun­cil

"Com­mon­wealth Writ­ers is ex­cit­ed to be part of this time­ly ac­tion group to gen­er­ate prac­ti­cal ideas to help shape a dy­nam­ic pub­lish­ing in­fra­struc­ture across the Caribbean. We hope that the ini­tia­tives which emerge from CALAG will in the longer term be trans­fer­able to oth­er re­gions where op­por­tu­ni­ties for writ­ers are scarce."

-Lucy Han­nah, Pro­gramme man­ag­er, Cul­ture, Com­mon­wealth Foun­da­tion