Shereen Ali

Schol­ars, dream­ers, read­ers, writ­ers, and any­one who loves a good sto­ry are look­ing for­ward to the start of this year's five-day NGC Bo­cas Lit Fest in Port-of-Spain, from April 29–May 3. This year, the fes­ti­val breaks new ground with its Sto­ry­telling Car­a­van for chil­dren, which will tell sto­ries every Sat­ur­day in April through­out the coun­try to chil­dren aged six to 13 years.

Sto­ry­tellers will spin their yarns in pa­n­yards, li­braries, a nurs­ery and some chil­dren's homes, per­form­ing tales such as The Mer­maid of Grande Riv­iere and The Igua­na that Lived in the Clock.

Sto­ry­tellers in­clude Aun­tie Thea, Ly­lah Per­sad, Thel­ma Perkins, Dara Healy and Ein­tou Springer. Dur­ing the ac­tu­al fes­ti­val, the Chil­dren's Car­a­van will join the adult fes­ti­val at the Na­tion­al Li­brary for three days of writ­ing work­shops, au­thor read­ings, and the last of the chil­dren's sto­ry­telling events. These events will take place in the chil­dren's sec­tion of the Na­tion­al Li­brary.

Such out­reach to new and di­verse au­di­ences is all part of the fes­ti­val's plan as it seeks to not on­ly make Bo­cas Lit fest a live­ly, well-at­tend­ed tra­di­tion, but to al­so raise in­ter­est lev­els in lit­er­a­ture in an is­land which tra­di­tion­al­ly has not seen a big read­ing cul­ture.

Ef­forts to boost fes­ti­val num­bers seem to be work­ing, as the fes­ti­val, now in its fifth year, has in­creased its at­ten­dance by more than 2,000 peo­ple, ac­cord­ing to a re­lease from the fes­ti­val or­gan­is­ers. At the fes­ti­val's for­mal launch last Wednes­day, founder and fes­ti­val di­rec­tor Ma­ri­na Sa­landy-Brown said:

"It has grown from over 3,000 in 2011 for the events, in­clud­ing chil­dren, to well over 5,000 in 2014, with an­oth­er 1,000-plus who lis­tened on­line last April from all over the re­gion and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly. If we add an­oth­er two fes­ti­vals that take place in To­ba­go and South, the fig­ures are high­er still."

Fes­ti­val achieve­ments

For a rel­a­tive­ly new fes­ti­val, the Bo­cas Lit Fest has al­ready chalked up some no­table achieve­ments, chief of which is the spread of fes­ti­val events to oth­er parts of T&T. So far, since it be­gan, eight fes­ti­vals have been held: four in Port-of-Spain, one in South and Cen­tral, and two in To­ba­go. These fes­ti­vals have in­clud­ed 300 dif­fer­ent events, in­clud­ing read­ings, dis­cus­sions, per­for­mances, film screen­ings, book launch­es and po­et­ry slams.

The Bo­cas Lit Fest has al­so held events out­side of our bor­ders, help­ing to bring our writ­ers to the world: it host­ed three events in New York, one in Mi­a­mi, and one in St Lu­cia for a ma­jor Com­mon­wealth lit­er­a­ture con­fer­ence.

The fes­ti­val has helped emerg­ing writ­ers de­vel­op their skills through work­shops and mas­ter­class­es, a valu­able learn­ing tool which con­tin­ues this year with work­shops in spec­u­la­tive fic­tion, prepar­ing man­u­scripts for pub­li­ca­tion, lit­er­ary trans­la­tion, po­et­ry, and a work­shop on how to start a mag­a­zine in six weeks, among oth­er ses­sions. Pre-reg­is­tra­tion is re­quired for the work­shops (places can be booked on the fes­ti­val web­site), and there are mod­est fees in­volved: $60 for short work­shops, and $100 for all-day work­shops. All oth­er events at the fes­ti­val are free and open to the pub­lic.

Per­haps the best part of the Bo­cas Lit Fest for both new and es­tab­lished writ­ers is the ex­po­sure and op­por­tu­ni­ties that can come from par­tic­i­pa­tion. So far, the fes­ti­val has show­cased 20 emerg­ing writ­ers, four of whom have gone on to pub­lish books, and three of whom are in­clud­ed in a new an­thol­o­gy: Com­ing Up Hot: Best New Po­ets in the Caribbean.

A ma­jor achieve­ment of Bo­cas Lit Fest is that some writ­ers have ac­tu­al­ly gained agents and book deals as a re­sult of con­nec­tions made dur­ing the fes­ti­val. The fes­ti­val has so far brought at least 20 in­ter­na­tion­al pub­lish­ing pro­fes­sion­als and lit­er­ary fes­ti­val di­rec­tors to T&T, en­abling such deals. Writ­ers have al­so re­ceived in­vi­ta­tions to read and per­form in­ter­na­tion­al­ly through the fes­ti­val, say fes­ti­val or­gan­is­ers.

Quite apart from help­ing writ­ers, the Bo­cas Lit Fest has al­so been ac­tive in ed­u­ca­tion. Us­ing the three win­ning 2014 Burt Award books, fes­ti­val staff have worked with dozens of sec­ondary school teach­ers on ways of teach­ing lit­er­a­ture that help de­vel­op a love for it. And us­ing the spo­ken word medi­um, the fes­ti­val has har­nessed the per­for­mance po­ets of the 2Cents Move­ment to en­gage with more than 50,000 stu­dents in at least 70 sec­ondary schools in the past two years in the Courts Bo­cas spo­ken word tour.

Al­so in ed­u­ca­tion, the fes­ti­val has pub­lished three il­lus­trat­ed chil­dren's sto­ry­telling books, and helped fa­cil­i­tate the pub­li­ca­tion of many chil­dren's sto­ries in lo­cal me­dia.

The fes­ti­val's part­ners in­clude Al­ta, the British Coun­cil, Com­mon­wealth Writ­ers, Ar­von, CODE, Cre­ative Scot­land and the three T&T gov­ern­ment min­istries of Arts and Mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism, Ed­u­ca­tion, and Plan­ning and Sus­tain­able De­vel­op­ment.

2015 Bo­cas Prize short­list out on April 1

High­lights of this year's fes­ti­val in­clude the an­nounce­ment of the win­ner of the pres­ti­gious 2015 OCM Bo­cas Prize for Caribbean Lit­er­a­ture, a ma­jor re­gion­al award recog­nis­ing Caribbean writ­ers of po­et­ry, fic­tion and non-fic­tion.

This year's prize longlist was an­nounced ear­li­er in March, with the short­list to be an­nounced on April 1. The over­all win­ner, to be an­nounced on May 2, will re­ceive US$10,000. This year, for the first time, there will al­so be awards for the oth­er two fi­nal­ists.

The first win­ner of the OCM Bo­cas prize, in 2011, was St Lu­cian No­bel lau­re­ate Derek Wal­cott for his po­et­ry col­lec­tion White Egrets.

The 2012 win­ner was Trinida­di­an writer Earl Lovelace for his nov­el Is Just A Movie. In 2013, Trinida­di­an writer Monique Rof­fey won for her nov­el Arch­i­pel­ago. In 2014, the win­ner was the T&T writer Robert An­toni for his nov­el As Flies to What­less Boys.

MORE IN­FO

�2 All events (un­less oth­er­wise stat­ed) take place at the Na­tion­al Li­brary and Old Fire Sta­tion in down­town Port-of-Spain. A full down­load­able sched­ule is on the fes­ti­val's Web site.

Web­site: www.bo­caslit­fest.com.

Email: in­fo@bo­caslit­fest.com

Twit­ter: www.twit­ter.com/bo­caslit­fest

Tel: 222-7099 for gen­er­al fes­ti­val in­quiries; 625-8328 for work­shop book­ings; 712-6227 for chil­dren's fes­ti­val in­for­ma­tion.?