For playwright, journalist, and movie junkie Julien Neaves, winning the BBC International Radio Playwriting Competition is as serious as it is fulfilling.
Five years ago, in 2018, Neaves submitted his first radio play, Tanty Get Ah Android!, for the same competition.
He was selected as a finalist but did not secure the prize. It was within this time frame that he submitted work for several literary competitions like the Commonwealth Short Story Competition, but failed to advance.
Neaves, in a phone interview yesterday, said the loss in 2018 gave him the encouragement to keep trying.
Neaves’ second radio play, The Mighty Corbeau, got the judges’ nod of approval this time around. He topped this year’s competition category in English as a First Language.
For those not familiar, radio plays are different from stage plays as stories are brought to life through the use of voice, tone, and special effects.
Upon receiving the news of his win in September via email, Neaves was ecstatic.
“Since I was a boy, I dreamed of being a writer. All my hopes, and dreams, and aspirations finally manifested. I was ecstatic,” he said.
The Mighty Corbeau, he said, has been with him since the 1990s. The story focuses on an elderly calypso singer who has been forgotten by the world. The story explores themes of ageing and mental health.
Neaves, 42, considers himself an old soul. “I tell people I’m an old soul; I connect with older people. I find that we as a society, Trinidad and the world, we push the elderly to the side. We don’t realise they have so much knowledge and experience, and so much of that we’re just letting crumble and die,” he said.
With many talented writers in the Caribbean and this country waiting to have their stories recognised and published Neaves lamented that many undervalue themselves.
“As Trinis we undervalue ourselves. Because we think, ‘I’m just a Trinidadian from this little dot in the world, nobody wants to read my story,’ they undervalue themselves and write all these stories, put in in a shelf, and it just dies,” he said.
Neaves urged aspiring playwrights and writers, both young and old, to believe in themselves and submit their work to literary competitions.
“I would say that no one is going to believe in you until you believe in yourself. You have to put in the work. If you want to be a playwright, read some plays, look at the structure and try your hand. There are a lot of free competitions, try it and see what happens” he said.
The Mighty Corbeau is scheduled to be broadcast in early 2024 by the BBC.
