2014 Commonwealth Short Story Prize - Open for entry 1 October
www.commonwealthwriters.org

This year Commonwealth Writers turns its focus solely on the Commonwealth Short Story Prize as a unique award. The short story is an accessible form for writers across the Commonwealth who are able to enter from countries where there is little or no publishing industry, as well as being able to enter stories translated into English.

The 2014 Commonwealth Short Story Prize judging panel will be chaired by Ellah Allfrey, Deputy Chair of the Council of the Caine Prize, and previously Deputy Editor of Granta and Senior Editor at Jonathan Cape, Random House.

“My hope is that writers from across the Commonwealth will be encouraged to send us stories that bring us news of wherever they are, in the wide variety of voices and accents that make up the English language. It would be wonderful to see submissions from bold stylists and stories that experiment with the form as well as more traditional approaches to the short story. This prize celebrates the power of the short story to spin a tale that concentrates experience and character in such specificity that the local is transformed to significance far beyond its borders. This is the magic of good writing, and this is what I hope we will find.” Ellah Allfrey, Chair, 2014 Commonwealth Short Story Prize The judges are: Doreen Baingana, Michelle de Kretser, Marlon James, Courttia Newland and Jeet Thayil. The panel reflects the five regions of the Commonwealth: Africa, Asia, Canada and Europe, the Caribbean, and the Pacific. Regional winners of the Commonwealth Short Story Prize will receive £2,500 and the overall winner receives £5,000. Translators of winning stories will receive additional prize money.

“We’re excited to be putting more resources into this year’s Short Story Prize. The award plays a key role in identifying strong original voices, as one part of Commonwealth Writers, the cultural initiative from the Commonwealth Foundation. We’re also proud to have such an accomplished team of judges.” Lucy Hannah, Programme Manager, Commonwealth Foundation

Commonwealth Writers is delighted to continue its partnership with Granta Magazine to give the overall and regional winners of the 2014 Commonwealth Short Story Prize the opportunity to have their story edited and published by Granta online.

This year Commonwealth Writers is pleased to announce a new association with the London-based literary and media agency Blake Friedmann, who will work with selected writers identified through the Prize.

ENDS

1.    Entry is via the online application form - www.commonwealthwriters/prizes. The closing date is 30 November 2013.

2.    Regional winners of the Commonwealth Short Story Prize receive £2,500 and the overall winner receives £5,000. For more information visit www.commonwealthwriters.org

3.    Commonwealth Writers
The Commonwealth Short Story Prize is part of Commonwealth Writers, the cultural initiative from the Commonwealth Foundation, which identifies, develops and connects writers and storytellers in a range of disciplines. It builds communities of less-heard voices and links them to groups that are trying to bring about social change - www.commonwealthwriters.org

4.    Commonwealth Foundation
The Commonwealth Foundation is a development organisation with an international remit and reach, uniquely situated at the interface between government and civil society. It develops the capacity of civil society to act together and learn from each other to engage with the institutions that shape people’s lives. It strives for more effective, responsive and accountable governance with civil society participation, which contributes to improved development outcomes - www.commonwealthfoundation.com

5.    Granta
Granta is a quarterly literary magazine of new writing. Published in book format, each issue includes stories, essays, memoir, poetry and art centred around a theme. Throughout its long history, Granta has published the most significant writers of our time featuring work by writers including Julian Barnes, Edwidge Danticat, Kazuo Ishiguro, Salman Rushdie, Santiago Roncagliolo, David Mitchell, Lorrie Moore, Zadie Smith, Jeanette Winterson and more. In recent years, the magazine has expanded to include foreign-language editions – in Spain, Italy, Brazil, Norway, China, Finland, Sweden, Portugal, Turkey, Bulgaria and Japan. www.granta.com

6.    Blake Friedmann
Blake Friedmann is a literary, film and television agency, representing a broad range of writers globally in both fiction and non-fiction. Their focus is on working with the most talented, dynamic and exciting writers across all genres, and the intention is always to represent writers' careers, rather than individual books or projects, and to sell those writers into as many markets, languages and media platforms as possible. 

Blake Friedmann authors have won a wide variety of prestigious prizes, including the Caine Prize, the Commonwealth Prize, the Orange Prize and PEN Awards; and been shortlisted for, among others, the Man Booker Prize, Guardian First Book Prize, Theakstons Crime Novel of the Year and the Costa Book Awards. Their books have topped bestseller charts around the world, and continue to regularly appear in the Sunday Times bestseller lists.

 

An often ignored part of the publishing industry faces unique challenges

POPULAR romance and detective novels are nowhere in sight. Instead, the new-arrivals shelves at the Cambridge University Press (CUP) bookshop exhibit copies of tomes few readers have heard of, such as “Memory in Vergil’s Aeneid” and “The Social Life of Greylag Geese”. Publishing works on such arcane subjects might seem like a death wish, but CUP has been doing this successfully since 1584. Peter Phillips, its boss, proudly calls it “the world’s oldest media business”.

CUP and the many other university presses around the world are not typical businesses, however. They are not-for-profit arms of their universities whose job is to publish works of scholarly importance. This forces them to balance intellectual impact with commercial interest.

Most get subsidies from their university, although some, like CUP and its larger rival, Oxford University Press, whose turnover exceeds £750m ($1.2 billion), generate big surpluses thanks to other businesses, such as journals, English-language training texts and exams. These two giants return tens of millions of pounds a year to their universities. In comparison, most university presses are minnows. But each has an important role in promoting the parent institution’s brand, much like a football team raises a city’s profile, says Carey Newman of Baylor University Press in Texas.

This is an excerpt of an article published in The Economist. Read the entire article. 

The Department of Literatures in English will host the 7th Edward Baugh Distinguished Lecture in association with The Quality Assurance Unit of the Board for Undergraduate Studies on Sunday November 3, 2013 at 11 am in the Neville Hall Lecture Theatre (N1) The Faculty of Humanities and Education.

CaribLit notes with sadness the passing of Jessica Huntley. Ms. Huntley passed away following a short illness.  She was 86 years old.

Ms. Huntley and her husband founded Bogle L'ouverture Publications in 1968; the company was a pioneer in Caribbean publishing in the United Kingdom. Its titles include Walter Rodney's seminal work, The Groundings with my Brothers'.  

The fourth OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature is now open for entries, for the 2014 prize of US$10,000.

In just three years, the region’s largest literary prize — sponsored by One Caribbean Media, parent company of the Express and TV6 — has become much sought after by Caribbean writers all over the world who qualify by being of Caribbean birth or citizenship. 

The cross-genre OCM Bocas Prize is judged in three categories: fiction, non-fiction and poetry, by judges from all over the Caribbean and its diaspora. The 2014 Prize is open to books published in the calendar year 2013. The overall winner is selected from the three category winners.

The 2014 judging panel is chaired by the distinguished Jamaican poet Linton Kwesi Johnson, who is joined by ten other writers, academics, and editors.

There are two deadlines for submissions, 15 November, 2013, and 13 January, 2014, depending on the publication date of an eligible title.

In 2013, the novel Archipelago by Monique Roffey was the overall winner of the OCM Bocas Prize. White Egrets, the poetry collection by Nobel Laureate Derek Walcott, won in the inaugural year of the Prize, and Earl Lovelace’s novel Is Just A Movie took home the 2012 Prize.

Speaking about the impact of this literary award, Marina Salandy-Brown, director and founder of the NGC Bocas Lit Fest, at which the prize is presented annually, said, “OCM is unique in rewarding literary excellence in this region, and its patronage has contributed much to raising the profile of Caribbean writers, which was much needed.”

For information about the OCM Bocas Prize, see the NGC Bocas Lit Fest website.

The 2014 NGC Bocas Lit Fest takes place from 23 to 27 April, 2014, at the National Library and the adjacent Old Fire Station, Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago.