The University of the West Indies, Mona, Department of Literatures in English, in association with the Kingston Book Festival and Artistic Expressions Ltd cordially invites you to "Love Affair with Literature 3". 

Join us for poetry and prose fiction readings featuring Robert Antoni, Kendel Hippolyte, Monica Minott, Dingo and Erna Brodber on Sunday March 2, 2014, 11:00am, Neville Hall Lecture Theatre (N1), Faculty of Humanities and Education, UWI, Mona Campus. 

The University of the West Indies, Mona, the Department of Literatures in English, and the Kingston Book Festival invite you to attend the launch of Robert Antoni's "As Flies to Whatless Boys".

The launch will be at Bookland, 53 Knutsford Boulevard, Kingston 5, on Saturday March 1, 2014 at 3pm.

This year’s Kingston Book Festival takes a different turn with a series of activities spread out over the year, in recognition of the 25th anniversary of the Book Industry Association of Jamaica.

The celebrations kick off the first week in March in the traditional Kingston Book Festival time slot, peaking mid-year for the official July 13 anniversary and continuing through the end of the year with a planned regional conference on digital publishing.

The highlight of the March activities is a two-day workshop on writing for children and young adults, sponsored by CODE, a Canadian NGO and CaribLit, a regional literary promotions project. The workshop will be repeated in Trinidad and Guyana.

The Jamaican edition will be co-facilitated by veteran children’s book author and Musgrave medal winner, Diane Browne and Canadian Young Adult author, Richard Scrimger.

The workshop will be centred on technique, feelings and fun. Students will learn the techniques of writing for children and young adults as well as the process of channeling their feelings and experiences into compelling stories. Exercises will focus on using character archetypes, character development, point of view and dialogue and will comprise both group-work and individual story-boarding.

Scrimger, known for his humour, promises a highly interactive workshop. “Overall, my aim is to get the students interested in the idea of story.  In telling stories we are looking deeply into our own lives, examining why we act the way we do. 

“Paying attention to other peoples’ stories, adding our story to the total, counting ourselves in, is a necessary step towards self-knowledge, good citizenship, tolerant community.”

In addition to dealing with the differences in the craft of writing for children and young adults, Browne will focus on specific local challenges that may lend themselves to story development.

The workshop is free and runs March 6 and 7 from 10am to 4pm at the Spanish Court Hotel. 

Register for the workshop. Learn more about the facilitators at scrimger.ca and dianebrowneblog.blogspot.com.

For the Kingston Book Festival schedule, visit bookindustryja.com.

Workshop Outline

Thursday, March 6

10:00am-12:00am:          Lying, Stealing, and Bad Parenting:  How to Write Children's Fiction (Building Stories from Within), Richard Scrimger

12:00pm-1:00pm:             Lunch

1:00pm-2:30pm:               Early Childhood: Roots, Rhythm and Reading Levels, Diane Browne

2:30pm-4:00pm:               Writing Exercises, Richard Scrimger and Diane Browne

 Friday, March 7

10:00am-12:00am:          A Jamaican/Caribbean Twilight or Hunger Games Series? The Writing of YA Material, the Target Audience and the Gatekeepers, Diane Browne

12:00pm-1:00pm:             Lunch

1:00pm-3:00pm:               Writing Exercises, Richard Scrimger and Diane Browne

3:00pm-4:00pm:               Review work/Q&A

The first in a series of annual free workshops for writers of fiction for children and young adult will be held in several locations across the Caribbean this spring as part of CODE’s Burt Award for Caribbean Literature program.

CODE – a Canadian NGO which has been advancing literacy and learning around the world for 55 years – will run the workshops in collaboration with its local partners, Bocas Lit Fest and CaribLit.

The first two workshops will take place in Kingston, Jamaica (as part of the Kingston Book Festival) and in Georgetown, Guyana in March 2014. The workshops will be delivered by three talented authors of fiction for children and young adults: Canada’s Richard Scrimger, Jamaica’s Diane Browne and Guyana’s Paloma Mohamed.

 A third workshop is also being planned as part of the NGC Bocas Lit Fest in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad and Tobago (dates and venue TBD.) 

Offered as part of the Burt Award for Caribbean Literature, which aims to provide Caribbean youth with access to books they will enjoy and want to read, the workshops are intended to help emerging or established writers of books for children or young adults develop their skills, deepen their understanding of writing strategies appropriate for this age group, and encourage them to submit their work for consideration for the Award.

Detailed information about the workshops and how to register can be found at www.codecan.org/burt-award-caribbean 

Submissions for the inaugural Burt Award for Caribbean Literature closed on October 25, 2013. The longlist will be announced in February 2014 and the shortlist in March 2014. The first three winners of this unique and innovative literary award will be announced at the NGC Bocas Lit Fest in Trinidad and Tobago on April 25, 2014. 

Submissions for the next edition of the Award will be accepted as of June 1, 2014 with a deadline of October 24, 2014.

Writers interested in the Burt Award for Caribbean literature program are encouraged to contact the Awards’ administrators at Bocas Lit Fest info@bocaslitfest.com or CODE Cbelshaw@codecan.org

Thanks for your interest in our workshop on writing for children and young adults. The Kingston workshop is now full. Please register so that we can send you the transcript and link to the video recording.

Follow @CaribLit for live updates from the workshop and join us on Saturday, March 8 at 11am at Bookophilia for a special reading by Richard Scrimger followed by a discussion on writing for children and young adults.

CaribbeanReads, in partnership with Jaxon Photography, is producing an anthology of Caribbean Christmas stories for children. The book will feature stories, crafts, and artwork from various parts of the Caribbean produced by Caribbean artists.
CaribbeanReads is seeking email submissions of art, poetry, and short stories from Caribbean citizens for aCaribbean Christmas anthology. The book is intended to delight readers with tales of the holiday spirit, traditions, and values in the Caribbean islands, and will highlight Christmas as well as other traditional celebrations that take place at Christmastime in the Caribbean. The book will be aimed at children 6 to 9 years old.

All submissions should be sent by email to submissions[at]CaribbeanReads[dot]com and must follow the guidelines outlined on the website. The submission deadline is June 30, 2014.

More details at:
http://www.caribbeanreads.com/christmasanthology/