Zahra Gor­don

When Bar­bara Jenk­ins, 71, be­gan the Mas­ter's of Fine Arts cre­ative writ­ing pro­gramme at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies near­ly two years ago, in ad­di­tion to hon­ing her writ­ing skills, she was al­so fill­ing a void. "The MFA filled a vac­u­um in my life. Where­as friends my age have their par­ents who are still alive and sib­lings, cousins, aunts and un­cles, I'm or­phaned from all of that."

Jenk­ins, who fin­ished the pro­gramme last year, has three chil­dren and six grand­chil­dren but they all live abroad. Her hus­band and par­ents are all de­ceased. Be­ing free of those "re­spon­si­bil­i­ties and in­ter­ests" made com­plet­ing the de­gree some­what eas­i­er for her.

Dur­ing the pro­gramme, Jenk­ins, a re­tired teacher, grew to ad­mire those stu­dents who had fam­i­lies and oc­cu­pa­tions and still man­aged to make it to class on time with com­plete as­sign­ments.

Even though Jenk­ins has ex­pe­ri­enced much loss, she cher­ish­es the time she spent with those spe­cial peo­ple. "If they were alive I don't know that I would've been able to re­flect on how much they meant to me and I was glad for the time to re­flect," she said dur­ing an in­ter­view at the Ho­tel Nor­mandie on Tues­day where she was meet­ing with Pa­per­based Book­shop own­er, Joan Day­al. Pa­per­based, so far, is the on­ly lo­cal re­tail­er of her forth­com­ing de­but col­lec­tion of short sto­ries, Sic Tran­sit Wag­on and Oth­er Sto­ries.

Sic Tran­sit Wag­on will be launched at the Bo­cas Lit­er­ary Fes­ti­val at the Old Fire Sta­tion, Port-of-Spain on Sun­day.

Ac­cord­ing to Jenk­ins, all of her life was be­fore writ­ing and her up­bring­ing and home­town, Bel­mont, in par­tic­u­lar, pro­vide fod­der for her sto­ries.

In his re­view of the book for Guardian Sun­day Arts, colum­nist BC Pires said the pieces Cur­tains and Its Cher­ry Pink and Ap­ple Blos­som White "re­veal just how weak every oth­er as­pi­rant Bel­mont mem­oirist re­al­ly has been so far."

Her im­mense love for Bel­mont is ev­i­dent when she speaks about the area. "Bel­mont was an ab­solute­ly amaz­ing place to grow up. It was ex­treme­ly di­verse. There were peo­ple there of every race, class and re­li­gion.

There was al­so the bur­geon­ing cul­tur­al space. Salde­nah's bands were leav­ing from Bel­mont at a time when you fit­ted and mea­sured for a cos­tume the same way you were for a dress. Even my moth­er's sewing ma­chine was called in for the mak­ing of cos­tumes. Bel­mont had every­thing you could want–cor­ner shops, Olympic Cin­e­ma, the church­es, steel­bands. It was a very rich ex­pe­ri­ence."

The sto­ries in Sic Tran­sit Wag­on are not on­ly about Bel­mont, how­ev­er. The ti­tle piece gets its name from a "play­ful pun" on the Latin phrase "sic tran­sit glo­ria mun­di" which means "thus pass­es the glo­ry of the world."

"I had a beloved sta­tion wag­on which I had to sell. It was as if a whole chunk of my life was be­ing be­trayed and I wrote about it," said Jenk­ins. The oth­er sto­ries Jenk­ins de­scribes as se­mi-au­to­bi­o­graph­i­cal, sto­ries of loss, and sto­ries of soul search­ing.

Her work has come a long way since she first be­gan writ­ing in 2008. At the time, Jenk­ins lacked con­fi­dence in her work but af­ter en­cour­age­ment from friends she en­tered writ­ing com­pe­ti­tions and fared well. In 2009, she re­ceived spe­cial men­tion in the Com­mon­wealth Short Sto­ry com­pe­ti­tion for her en­try No News is Good News. In 2010, she won the com­pe­ti­tion with her en­try Some­thing from Noth­ing. Her work has al­so been pub­lishedin lit­er­ary jour­nals such as Wasafiri, Caribbean Writer and Small Axe.

Now, Jenk­ins an­swers the ques­tion of whether she has more con­fi­dence with "maybe." She still has more writ­ing to do and more dis­cov­er­ies to make.

"The main thing I got (from the MFA) was ex­po­sure to Caribbean cul­ture and iden­ti­ty. Grow­ing up, we were colo­nials and we had to find that Caribbean cul­ture for our­selves. I knew every­thing about Eng­lish his­to­ry but noth­ing about Caribbean his­to­ry. In fact, at the time we didn't have a his­to­ry at the time more than as pawns in Eu­ro­pean wars," she said. "I learned a lot that every­one al­ready knew."

Sic Tran­sit Wag­on and Oth­er Sto­ries will be launched at the NGC Bo­cas Lit Fest, Na­tion­al Li­brary, Old Fire Sta­tion Build­ing, Aber­crom­by Street, Port-of-Spain, from 1.30�2.30 pm on April 28.

TO­DAY'S NGC BO­CAS LIT FEST sched­ule

PO­ET­RY

Roger Robin­son and Han­nah Lowe

New po­ems by two British-based writ­ers.

10�11 am: Old Fire Sta­tion

DIS­CUS­SION

Writ­ing back: the new post-im­pe­r­i­al his­to­ry with Pankaj Mishra and Richard Dray­ton, chaired by Brid­get Br­ere­ton.

How are his­to­ri­ans and writ­ers from for­mer­ly colonised na­tions chang­ing the ways we un­der­stand our past and present? The In­di­an au­thor of From the Ru­ins of Em­pire and the Bar­ba­di­an Rhodes Pro­fes­sor of Im­pe­r­i­al His­to­ry at King's Col­lege Lon­don share their views with a dis­tin­guished Trinida­di­an his­to­ri­an.

10�11.30 am: AV Room

SHORT TALK

Jack­ie Hink­son talks to Mar­sha Pearce about his mem­oir of a life in art.

11 am�12 pm: Old Fire Sta­tion

WORK­SHOP

His­to­ry as fic­tion with Lawrence Scott and Ker­ry Young.

How do you turn re­al sto­ries of the past in­to fic­tions in the present?

10 am�12.30 pm: 1st Floor Sem­i­nar Room

PER­FOR­MANCE PO­ET­RY AND OPEN MIC

Lunchtime jam

A se­lec­tion of per­for­mance po­ets take their vibe to the streets of the city. Plus a chance for bud­ding writ­ers to share their work.

Noon�1 pm: Aber­crom­by Street Ar­cade

FILM

Wuther­ing Heights, dir. An­drea Arnold

A poor un­known boy of "of gyp­sy stock" is res­cued from pover­ty and tak­en in by the Earn­shaw fam­i­ly, where he de­vel­ops an in­tense re­la­tion­ship with his young fos­ter sis­ter, Cathy. This most re­cent adap­ta­tion of the clas­sic nov­el by Emi­ly Bront� casts Heath­cliff as a for­mer slave des­tined to a doomed cross-racial love af­fair.

Noon�2 pm: AV Room

NEW TAL­ENT SHOW­CASE

So­nia Farmer

The sec­ond of our New Tal­ent Show­case writ­ers reads from her po­ems and dis­cuss­es her work.

12.30�1 pm: Old Fire Sta­tion

WORK­SHOP

Where does "in­spi­ra­tion" come from? with Vah­ni Capildeo

As a be­gin­ning po­et, where do you look for ideas, im­ages, themes? Does "in­spi­ra­tion" ex­ist, and how can you pro­voke it?

1.30�4 pm: 1st Floor Sem­i­nar Room

ONE-ON-ONE

Olive Se­nior

The Ja­maican au­thor of con­tem­po­rary clas­sics like Sum­mer Light­ning and Gar­den­ing in the Trop­ics talks to Michael Buc­knor about how her life in and out of Ja­maica in­flu­ences her work.

2�3 pm: Old Fire Sta­tion

DIS­CUS­SION

Same old or same new? How tech­nol­o­gy will or won't change the way writ­ers tell sto­ries with Elise Dillsworth, Court­tia

New­land, and Joanne Gail John­son, chaired by Ibrahim Ah­mad.

New pub­lish­ing me­dia are al­ready shap­ing how writ­ers write and how read­ers read. But will the fun­da­men­tals of sto­ry­telling re­main the same? Two writ­ers and a lit­er­ary agent dis­cuss the ques­tion with a fic­tion ed­i­tor.

2.30�3.30 pm: AV Room

SHORT TALK

Fr An­tho­ny de Ver­teuil talks to An­ge­lo Bisses­sars­ingh about writ­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go's so­cial his­to­ry.

3�4 pm: Old Fire Sta­tion

PER­FOR­MANCE

Mid­night Rob­ber show­down

Three sharp-tongued Mid­night

Rob­bers–John­ny Stollmey­er, Kur­tis Gross and Fe­don Hon­or�–face off and ar­gue the ques­tion, "Should the arts be po­lit­i­cal?"

4�5 pm: Aber­crom­by Street Ar­cade

ONE-ON-ONE

Irvine Welsh

The best­selling writer talks to B.C. Pires about be­ing the "voice" of con­tem­po­rary Scot­land, and see­ing his fic­tion blown up on the cin­e­ma screen.

4�5 pm: AV Room

FILM

Trainspot­ting, dir. Dan­ny Boyle

A black com­e­dy based on the nov­el by Irvine Welsh, fol­low­ing a group of hero­in ad­dicts in late 1980s Ed­in­burgh. Trainspot­ting was vot­ed the best Scot­tish film of all time in a 2004 poll, and ranks 10th in the British Film In­sti­tute's list of the Top 100 British films of all time.

5�6.30 pm: AV Room

ONE-ON-ONE

Teju Cole

The Niger­ian au­thor of Open City talks to Nicholas Laugh­lin about the lines be­tween fic­tion and non-fic­tion, and lit­er­a­ture be­yond na­tion­al bound­aries.

5�6 pm: Old Fire Sta­tion

THE­ATRE

A Mid­sum­mer Night's Dream, pre­sent­ed by the Trinidad The­atre Work­shop.

Shake­speare's clas­sic tale of lovers, spir­its, and dream­ers is giv­en new life as a pa­rade of blue dev­ils, jab jabs, and oth­er tra­di­tion­al Car­ni­val char­ac­ters find their way in­to an­cient Athens. Time, love, and re­al­i­ty are sub­ject to change, as the worlds of spir­its and hu­mans col­lide. Di­rect­ed by Tim­mia Hearn-Feld­man, star­ring Nick­o­lai Sal­cedo, Afi Ford-Hop­son, Kearn Samuel, Arnold Goind­han, Tis­han­na Williams, Sol­er Phillips, and Sindy Nurse.

8 pm: Trinidad The­atre Work­shop, 23 Jern­ing­ham Av­enue, Bel­mont, Port of Spain.

Tick­ets: $150 for 1, $200 for 2

For in­for­ma­tion or book­ings, call (868) 624 8502.

Runs un­til April 28, Sun­day mati­nees at 6 pm.