A brand new fellowship programme for early-career Caribbean writers, administered by the Bocas Lit Fest, is now open for purposes.
Working from December 2023 to Could 2024, the Bocas Breakthrough Fellowships will help 5 early-career Caribbean writers primarily based at house within the area in advancing or finishing a e book manuscript or different physique of labor, and growing their skilled expertise and networks within the regional and worldwide literary world. The applying deadline is October 31.
The fellowships are funded by Inventive Caribbean, a joint undertaking applied by UNESCO, the CARICOM Secretariat, and The College of the West Indies (UWI), with funding from the European Union and the Organisation of African, Caribbean and Pacific States, below the ACP-EU eleventh EDF Tradition Programme. Inventive Caribbean brings the area’s inventive neighborhood collectively to realize shared targets and initiatives for the development of the Caribbean as a cultural and artistic area and financial participant.
To use for the Bocas Breakthrough Fellowships, writers have to be of Caribbean beginning or citizenship, dwelling and dealing within the Caribbean area, and be 18 years previous or over by the applying deadline. Writers should not have beforehand revealed a book-length work in any style.
Every fellowship will embrace participation in a collection of month-to-month digital seminars with worldwide literary professionals, six months’ mentorship from a longtime writer, publication of a chapbook with an excerpt from the author’s work in progress, and a stipend of US$300. Fellows will even take part within the 2024 NGC Bocas Lit Fest in Port of Spain in April 2024, with journey and lodging prices coated for fellows primarily based exterior Trinidad.
Writers can apply on-line through the Bocas Lit Fest web site at www.bocaslitfest.com/awards/bocas-breakthrough-fellowships
The Bocas Breakthrough Fellowships are the most recent within the Bocas Lit Fest’s long run collection of programmes aiming at in search of out, growing, and selling new literary expertise within the Caribbean.
“From the start, help for rising writers has been a primary goal of the Bocas Lit Fest,” says competition and programme director Nicholas Laughlin. “Over the previous 13 years, we’ve got labored with dozens of latest writers from throughout the area and of all ages, providing coaching in craft {and professional} improvement by way of workshops and seminars, showcasing their writing at festivals and different occasions, and recognising their achievements by way of awards.”
Laughlin continues: “We’re excited to launch the brand new Bocas Breakthrough Fellowships with funding from the Inventive Caribbean consortium, and equally excited to decide on a cohort of early-career writers and observe their progress by way of the varied parts of the programme. That is a rare alternative for 5 writers within the Caribbean to learn from one-on-one mentorship, seminars masking key matters within the literary sphere, and publication of their work. The fellowships will culminate at subsequent yr’s NGC Bocas Lit Fest in Port of Spain, the place the 5 fellows will be part of a particular showcase occasion and in addition profit from networking with dozens of different authors, publishers, and literary professionals.”
