When I agreed to testify against that man, I did it because Isaiah wanted me to. Because I needed to. Because a little distance lulls you into a false sense of security. Because the silent empty well I’d been falling down for years finally allowed me to scream.  

Shape of a Warrior performs a twofold function, it preserves the past with thoughtful reverence but shows keen awareness that the lives, practices, language, and beliefs of the Kalinago as well as the Garifuna cannot be relegated to relics of history. They literally live among, around, and within us.

She rose, a surging shadow, glowering. The rust-coloured tinge unfurling across the horizon signalled the disappearing sun. Damian didn’t know what shocked him more, the inordinate eclipse of her presence or the sudden rage of the sea.

There is so much more to say about how these women demonstrate feminist consciousness by fighting for themselves in the worst and most dire situations. There are so many more credits to attribute to the authors of these texts whose use of narratology, both in fiction and nonfiction, activates knowledge and clarifies absences about women which remained hidden historically

Her creative work includes her recently published poetry collection The Mother Island which won 2nd place in the 2021 FCLE competition. The collection deals with matters of identity, motherhood and womanhood in the Caribbean.

Irma swings the flashlight toward the gap where the door and window used to be.

Water gushes through both openings. A TEARING metallic sound. Irma swings the flashlight toward the roof. Another part of the GALVANIZE roof rips away. Cresilla’s scream cuts off when she looks up and glimpses a red-chested figure with black cape.

CRESILLA, in wonder, voice carrying in excitement: Frig it!

“One Love. That’s right, this session is about film – not just that film though, but Caribbean film more broadly and specifically ones I’ve seen this half year. Twice in the case of Bob Marley: One Love.”

My current reading is not by design but it’s a good jumping off point for reflection on how spec fic, or Caribbean futurism, is in many ways the type of fiction we need when the world is at its most volatile or uncertain.   

On the page, as in life, people (characters) have things that mean something to them; that come to symbolize things in the greater context of the story. For me, the key is not to force it (what a character’s thing is) but to discover it over the course of revisions.

I’m not a scientist nor a politician, but, climate change is real and writing is how I process life. The creative process compels me to grapple with whatever anxiety, and frankly fear, I may be feeling about our current and near future reality.

A recurring thought, so far, has been names/identity/labels as I navigate who these characters are, what they call themselves and, because we live in a social reality, what they are called by others.

Joanne, or Jhohadli, is one of Antigua and Barbuda’s most prominent contemporary writers. Having contributed to the growth of the literary scene on a local, regional, and international scale, she has published eight books of fiction…

Intersect Antigua-Barbuda is pleased to announce its forthcoming inaugural series, The Artist-In-Residence programme.