2019 CONCH SHELL NEW WORKS READING SERIES PROGRAM

New Plays by Caribbean-American Playwrights

The Bruce Mitchell Room

520 8th Avenue, 3rd Floor

New York, NY 10018

Click here to reserve your free tickets.

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2019 CONCH SHELL NEW WORKS READING SERIES PROGRAM

We are proud to announce Conch Shell New Works Reading Series 2019 selected works.

BETWEEN GRACE & GAYELLE

by Anton Nimblett

October 5th, 2019 @ 8pm

A young man, caught in the magic time between night and day, wrestles with life and dances with death. 

MISFIT, AMERICA – AN AMERICAN WESTERN WITH COLOR 

by Nelson Diaz-Marcano

October 6th, 2019 @8pm

An interracial couple leads a diverse community as they are forced to protect a Native American teen from a brotherhood of supremacists.

DESTINATION OOOH AAAH YUMMY

by Magaly Colimon-Christopher

October 12th, 2019 @ 4pm

A time bending journey into a young woman’s mind as she struggles to figure out her life’s purpose.

LUCKY

by Phanesia Pharel

October 12th, 2019 @ 7pm

A woman unravels sexual trauma and finds the power of healing through writing.

Text and image adapted from website.

Staceyann Chin

7pm-8:30pm (Q&A and book signing to follow)
1 October 2019 (Tuesday)
BAM Fisher
Fishman Space
Buy tickets here

Unbound: Staceyann Chin

Part of Unbound

In conversation with Eve Ensler

Launch of Crossfire: A Litany for Survival
Co-presented by BAM and Greenlight Bookstore

Renowned LGBTQ poet and spoken word artist Staceyann Chin celebrates the release of her first full-length collection, Crossfire: Litany for Survival. After she reads from her work, Chin is joined in conversation by playwright, performer, and activist Eve Ensler.

An audience Q&A and book signing to follow.

“Staceyann Chin’s Crossfire: A Litany for Survival is a remarkable collection from a dynamic and talented writer, whose urgent storytelling and commanding voice feel vital for our times.” —Edwidge Danticat

Above text and image adapted from webpage.

 

From the Islands to Eastern Parkway: A Transnational History of Carnival with Ray Allen

6:30pm – 8:00pm
24 September 2019 (Tuesday)
Skylight Room (9th Floor) The Graduate Center, CUNY

 
From the Islands to Eastern Parkway: A Transnational History of Carnival
  • Tuesday, September 24, 2019
  • 6:30 PM 8:00 PM
  • Skylight Room (9th Floor), The Graduate Center, CUNY 365 5th Avenue New York, NY, 10016 United States
Ray Allen of Brooklyn College talks about his new book, Jump Up!, the first lengthy study of calypso and steelband music in the African diaspora, the first documented history of Brooklyn’s soca music industry, and the first thorough account of the borough’s Carnival J’ouvert celebration. Q&A follows with Harvey R. Neptune, author of Caliban and the Yankees: Trinidad and the United States Occupation.

 


Presented with the CUNY Graduate Center’s Advanced Research Collaborative and  
The Institute for the African Diaspora in the Americas & Caribbean.

Ray Allen (Brooklyn College) talks about his new book, Jump Up!, the first lengthy study of calypso and steelband music in the African diaspora, the first documented history of Brooklyn’s soca music industry, and the first thorough account of the borough’s Carnival J’ouvert celebration.

Q&A follows with Harvey R. Neptune, author of Caliban and the Yankees: Trinidad and the United States Occupation.

This event is presented with the Graduate Center’s Institute for the African Diaspora in the Americas and Caribbean (IRADAC).

Above text adapted from email.

From Katrina to Michael: Disaster in the 21st-century Circum-Caribbean

20-21 February 2020
Florida State University

CFP Deadline: 30 September 2019 

Keynote speakers:
Yarimar Bonilla (Rutgers University), Laura Wagner (freelance anthropologist), and Mark Schuller (Northern Illinois University and Faculté d’Ethnologie – Université d’Etat d’Haïti)

Conference artist: Édouard Duval Carrié

To mark the 10-year anniversary of the Haitian earthquake, this conference proposes a regional approach to disaster that seeks to draw connections between 21st-century experiences of catastrophe in the circum-Caribbean, including the south-east U.S. and North Florida post-Michael. Continue reading From Katrina to Michael: Disaster in the 21st-century Circum-Caribbean

19th International Conference on Caribbean Literature

“Caribbean Literary Crossings, Critical Crossroads and Cross-Disciplinary Conversations”

13-15th November 2019
Bridgetown, Barbados

CFP Deadline: 15 July 2019 

From the recent treatment of the Windrush generation in Britain to the growing interest in the environmental humanities and the plantationocene, Caribbean literary arts continue to provide insights relevant to our lived experiences. From créolité to cross-cultural dialogue, the boundary-blurring aesthetic of the region is instrumental in throwing into relief fruitful connections important to our understandings of, for example, cultural and socio-political relationships.

Attentive to a region characterised by metaphors of change and interstices, the 19th International Conference on Caribbean Literature seeks to explore how crossroads, crossings and cross-fertilisations continue to be used to figure Caribbean futures. The main aim is to examine the kinds of connections to be developed between, for example, literature and law, speculative fiction and ethics, drama and medicine, poetry and marketing with a view to how these connections can be used to benefit Caribbean development and foster a productive commitment to literature, specifically, and the humanities in general. To this end, papers are therefore invited on topics related, but not limited, to: Continue reading 19th International Conference on Caribbean Literature

Book Fiestón: The Crazy Bunch By Willie Perdomo

6:00pm – 9:00pm
7 June 2019
Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute
120 E 125th St, New York, NY 10035
*RSVP, registration is free*

Join us in celebration of  Willie Perdomo’s most recent book, “The Crazy Bunch.” Guest writers Dahlma Llanos-Figueroa, Roberto Carlos Garcia, Felipe Luciano, and John Murillo will be present. The party includes a band, food, book signing, and a special reading of “The Crazy Bunch.” Copies of the book will be available for purchase!

Willie Perdomo, a native of East Harlem, has won praise as “a hip, playful, historically engaged poet whose restlessly lyrical language mixes city life with a sense of the transcendent” (NPR.org). In his fourth collection, The Crazy Bunch, Perdomo returns to his beloved neighborhood to create a vivid, kaleidoscopic portrait of a “crew” coming of age in East Harlem at the beginning of the 1990s. Continue reading Book Fiestón: The Crazy Bunch By Willie Perdomo

Epic Voices: The Caribbean (Un)Epic with M. NourbeSe Philip

3:00pm – 6:00pm
1 June 2019
Poets House
10 River Terrace, New York, NY 10282
Admission $10, $7 for students and seniors, free to Poets House members.

followed by

Zong!: A Collective Reading with King, Diggs, Henry-Smith & Hunt

6:00pm – 8:00pm
1 June 2019
Poets House
10 River Terrace, New York, NY 10282
Admission Free and open to the public

Poet M. NourbeSe Philip writes: “That ‘micropelago’ of tiny islands that arc in one long ache from Cuba to Guyana to enclose the Caribbean Sea (the Cari Basin) from the encroaching Atlantic Ocean; place and space of massive ‘interruckshuns,’ where tectonic plates of history grind against each other and shards of memory pierce and transfix green islands seeded with the spores of Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Indigenous: if places could be said to represent poetic forms or genres, the (un)epic would seem to be the Caribbean’s most natural form.” For Epic Voices: The Caribbean (Un)Epic with M. NourbeSe Philip at 3pm, join Philips as she draws on poets of Caribbean/Cari Basin heritage as she discusses her book Zong!, as well as her manuscript Island Liturgies, in the context of the (un)epic.

This event is co-presented with Belladonna and the Canadian Consulate.

After the (Un)Epic talk, stick around for Zong!: A Collective Reading with King, Diggs, Henry-Smith & Hunt at 6pm. Join Rosamond S. King, LaTasha N. Nevada Diggs, Sean Henry-Smith, and Erica Hunt for a free collective reading/performance of Zong!. The poets use word, song, and bodies to interpret the book, the text of which is based entirely on historical documents relating to a 1781 massacre of 150 Africans on the slave ship Zong.

Above text and images adapted from webpage.

T&T’s “Hero” Lands in New York

Film Screening and Q&A with director, Frances-Anne Solomon

6:30pm 
30 May 2019
Walter Reade Theater
165 West 65th Street, New York, NY 10023
Tickets available here

AND

4:15pm 
2 June 2019
Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center
144 West 65th Street, New York, NY 10023
Tickets available here

Director Frances-Anne Solomon’s acclaimed feature film HERO, inspired by Trinidad and Tobago war hero Ulric Cross, will have its U.S premiere at the 26th New York African Film Festival’s (NYAFF) Opening Night at Lincoln Center. A second screening will take place on June 2nd at 4:15pm at the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center. Both screenings will include a Q&A afterward with the director. Tickets are $12-15 per person.  Continue reading T&T’s “Hero” Lands in New York

Adjunct Instructor for Caribbean Studies Course

The Department of Africana Studies, of CUNY Brooklyn College, is seeking an adjunct instructor to teach the following course in Fall 2019:

AFST 3349 The Caribbeanization of North America (3 hours, 3 credits)
The formation of Caribbean societies and their impact on the United States. Migration to the United States, its selection process and settlement patterns. The transformation of immigrants in the United States and their transformation of American society.

Africana Studies is interested in candidates whose research area is in the Social Sciences and has experience teaching college level courses in Africana Studies and/or related fields. There is some flexibility in scheduling the time of the course.

Please send the following documents as a pdf file: a cover letter, curriculum vitae and a list of three references to [email protected]. For more information, please contact the Department Chairperson, Prudence Cumberbatch.

Above text adapted from email.

*UPDATED* 38th Annual West Indian Literature Conference

“HINTERLANDS : Journeys of the Imagination”

17-20th October 2019
University of Guyana, Turkeyen Campus
Georgetown, Guyana

CFP Deadline: 20 June 2019 


Image: “Palace of the Peacock – Homage to Wilson Harris”,
George Simon, Phibert Gajadhar, Anil Roberts,
University of Guyana (2009)

Among the most significant origins of West Indian Literature is The Discovery of Guiana (1597) by one of the “ancestral murderers and poets” (Walcott), Sir Walter Ralegh. The quest for gold, the dream of wealth and power inspired centuries of “history, fable and myth” (Harris), which saw Ralegh himself, and generations of West Indian writers in pursuit of the elusive El Dorado, hidden in the mysteries of the Guianese Hinterland. The “Interiors” (McWatt), the “heartland”, the rainforests – the “hinterland”, is that vast unfathomable region that is largely unexplored, untamed, dynamic; whose definition is yet incomplete and the subject of a continuing journey of exploration and of the imagination.

That is West Indian literature at this time. That is what this conference seeks to interrogate. It is the subject of the conference and a concept of Guyana – the country in which the 38th Annual West Indian Literature Conference will be held.
 Continue reading *UPDATED* 38th Annual West Indian Literature Conference

Recent Publication – sx salon 30: Brother, by David Chariandy

sx salon
Issue 30
February 2019

Issue 30 of sx salon is dedicated to David Chariandy’s second novel, Brother (2017). Brother has received many awards and accolades, such as the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize and the Toronto Book Award. To discuss the various dimensions of Chariandy’s novel, sx salon has gathered several voices from Canada and the Caribbean to explore the intricacies of homosocial and diasporic spaces, linearity, and the lines between nostalgia, sentiment, and survival. (Introduction)

sx salon: a small axe literary platform is a digital forum for innovative critical and creative explorations of Caribbean literature, broadly defined. Caribbean creative writing has always wrestled with the idea of an aesthetic form that engages regional and diasporic understandings of our changing realities. As a forum, sx salon aims to stimulate these sensibilities and preoccupations across different literary genres. Initiated in 2010, sx salon appears three times per year (February, June, and October). The journal publishes literary discussions, interviews with writers, reviews of new publications (creative and scholarly), and poetry and prose by Caribbean writers.

Table of Contents Continue reading Recent Publication – sx salon 30: Brother, by David Chariandy

Louise Bennett Anthology

CFP Deadline: 1 August 2019

This Call For Papers is for an amazing Louise Bennett anthology that will be published end of 2019 to honor the 100th birthday of Jamaica’s folk icon. The anthology is seeking to gather 100 submissions from as many writers/ poets/ critics/ artists as possible. Questions should be sent to the email address on the flyer ([email protected]) or to Isis Semaj-Hall directly at [email protected]

Above text and image adapted from email.

Caribbean Quarterly: Enough!

CFP Deadline: 1 August 2019

Caribbean Quarterly is now accepting submissions for Enough!, an issue dedicated to addressing child sexual abuse (CSA) in Caribbean culture through an examination of regional literature, film, art, music, and life writing. The journal is currently accepting articles (6000 words), poems (2 pages or less), short prose (1500 words or less), personal narratives (1500 words), and art (photographs, paintings, or drawings in jpeg format) focusing on CSA in the Caribbean.

This issue seeks to bring the art and scholarly communities as well as victims/survivors together to address the critical issue of CSA in the Caribbean region by initiating a conversation. This issue hopes to answer some questions, such as: Why is CSA so prevalent in the Caribbean, and what can be done to address it on a social, familial, and governmental level? Can the Caribbean transform its culture of accepting or concealing CSA? What are the historical origins of CSA culture in the Caribbean and can this narrative be altered? Is there a connection between gender and possible victimization in incidents of CSA in the Caribbean?

Some possible topics include, but are not limited to:

  • CSA in Caribbean literature, film, art, poetry, music
  • CSA and the Caribbean media
  • Addressing CSA in the Caribbean on a socio-cultural level
  • Families and CSA in the Caribbean
  • Reaching victims/survivors of CSA in the Caribbean
  • Addressing CSA in the Caribbean through education
  • CSA in the Caribbean and the culture of young girls and older men
  • Educating boys and men in the Caribbean on CSA culture
  • Victims of CSA in the Caribbean and gender

Please submit an article proposal of 250 words or less to guest editor Camille Alexander at [email protected] by August 1, 2019. Accepted proposals will receive responses by August 20, 2019 with final manuscripts due by December 1, 2019.

Submissions of prose, poems, art, and personal narratives may be submitted at any time before October 1, 2019; responses will be sent by December 1, 2019. For book review enquiries, please review the book list at http://www.uwi.edu/cq/reviews/booksreview.aspx and contact Caribbean Quarterly editor Kim Robinson-Walcott at [email protected] with your book selection preference.

For any additional enquiries about this issue of Caribbean Quarterly, please contact Camille Alexander, Assistant Professor, United Arab Emirates, University, [email protected].

Above text adapted from webpage.

Nicole Dennis-Benn presents Patsy

Book Launch and conversation with Tracy K. Smith

7:30pm 
4 June 2019
Greenlight Bookstore in Prospect Lefferts Gardens
632 Flatbush Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11225

Nicole Dennis-Benn, beloved and award-winning author of Here Comes the Sun, returns to Greenlight to present her searing new novel about the injustices—big and small—that immigrants, the working class, and women face every day. Patsy flows effortlessly between the story of the titular Patsy, who emigrates from Jamaica to New York in search of a freedom she’s never known, and the story of Tru, the daughter she leaves behind. While Patsy finds herself ironically working as a nanny after fleeing from parental expectations at home, Tru attempts to build a relationship with her father, though she never stops wondering where her mother has gone. As Dennis-Benn depicts the lives of Patsy and Tru over the course of a decade, the two women remain connected through their desire for a freedom beyond that which is available to them. Current U.S. poet laureate Tracy K. Smith joins Dennis-Benn in conversation at Greenlight, followed by a festive reception with rum punch to celebrate the book’s launch.

Above images and text adapted from webpage.

 

Killens Review of Arts & Letters

Fall/Winter 2019 Issue
Theme: “Life at a Crossroads”

CFP Deadline:  19 July 2019

Overview of the Journal:

For the Fall 2019 issue of the Killens Review of Arts & Letters, we seek submissions of creative nonfiction, fiction, essays, interviews, book reviews, poetry, memoir, photography, and visual artwork by writers and artists of the African diaspora that mediate on facing a challenging decision or a life-changing moment that has made an impact on future generations or contributed to the legacy of the Black experience throughout the African diaspora.

THEME DESCRIPTION: “Life at a Crossroads”

In the 1941 book 12 Million Black Voices: A Folk History of the Negro in the United States, a combination of text and photographs that present a commentary on the hardships and aspirations of Blacks in America in the early 1900s, writer Richard Wright ends his prose with: “We are with the new tide. We stand at the crossroads. We watch each new procession. The hot wires carry urgent appeals. Print compels us. Voices are speaking. Men are moving! And we shall be with them.”

Since the publication of 12 Million Black Voices more than 74 years ago, there have been cultural, socioeconomic, and sociopolitical changes in America that have had a dramatic impact on the perspectives, beliefs, and livelihoods of people of the Black community. They have also left an indelible mark on American and world culture. Today, people of the Africa diaspora still stand at a crossroads, a time in which significant change and decision making are crucial to making a contribution to future generations and leaving a legacy to Black culture.

Please submit to only one category at a time:
essay, fiction, interview, poetry, prose, and art.
We aim to respond to your submission within two months time.

Submission Guidelines Continue reading Killens Review of Arts & Letters