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| "Gold Anthology" Writers |
This year the Jamaica
Cultural Development Commission celebrated 50 years of the Creative Writing
Contest. To commemorate this milestone, they have published a “Gold Anthology”
containing Gold-Medal-Winning short stories from 1999-2006. The writers are Rudolph Wallace, Verone
Johnston, Michael Reckford, Claudette Beckford-Brady, A-Dziko Simba, Nadine Tomlinson,
Charmaine Morris, Rhonda Harrison, Carroll Edwards and Dionne Jackson-Miller.
The Gold Anthology was unveiled at the JCDC
Creative Writing Contest Awards Ceremony 2013, held in the Grand Caribbean Suite
at the Knutsford Court Hotel, on Tuesday, November 5. There to witness the
unveiling were this year’s awardees and their families and friends, who were
entertained by a programme of exceptional quality. Mr. Roy Rayon took us back through
the years with his Suite of Festival Songs and had us singing along.
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| Dr. Erna Brodber |
Dr. Erna Brodber, the guest speaker, explained
to us how she, as a sociologist, worked to
collect the oral histories and the stories of elders in rural communities of
Jamaica. She sensed that the way
she had to present her findings failed to capture the stories she heard. The
novel, she realized, was a better medium. Hence her four novels: Jane and Louisa Will Soon Come Home (1980), Myal (1988), Louisiana (1994)
and The
Rainmaker's Mistake (2007). She won the Caribbean and Canadian regional Commonwealth Writers' Prize in 1989 for Myal.
In 1999 she received the Jamaican Musgrave Gold Award for Literature and Orature. She encouraged us to continue to tell Jamaicans’
stories.
Then followed the presentation of over 50 awards -
Certificates of Merit, Bronze, Silver and Gold Medals, Class and Category
awards and Overall Awards, interspersed
with poetry readings by Chadwick Foster, Mrs. Gloria Malcolm-Foster and Ms.
Ambrozene Simpson, and a attention-grabbing
dramatization of a scene from Omaall Wright’s silver-medal-winning play “Belly
Woman”.
I was
happy to be among the awardees, with a silver medal and Best Intermediate
Novelist for “The Last of the Marogs”, sequel to “Delroy and the Marog Princess”
(bronze medal, 2011) and Delroy in the Marog Kingdom (published by MacmillanCaribbean 2009).
The overall
winners were:
1st
place - Best Overall Writer - Gloria Malcolm-Foster, (Trelawny), for 3 poems (1
gold, 1 silver and 1 merit) and her play “GSAT!!” (Certificate of Merit)
2nd
place - Outstanding Writer - Ava-Gay Bennett, Best Intermediate Poet, for her
poems “Di Blackberry” (gold) and “Georgie Porgie” (silver). Ava-Gay hails from
St. James, so I’m looking forward to meeting her at JCDC events staged in our
parish.
3rd
place - Special Writer - Ambrozene Simpson, (Kingston & St. Andrew) Best
Adult Poet, for her poem “Constant Companion” (gold).
4th
place - Choice Writer - Nattalie Gordon, (St. Catherine), Best Junior Poet, for
her poem “New Shoes Blues”, (gold).
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| Nattalie Gordon delighted with her award |
5th
place - Noteworthy writer - was shared between Chadwick Foster (Trelawny) for his
poem “Monster Maid”, (gold) and Malachi
Smith (Kingston & St. Andrew) for his poem “Cotton Piece”.
The
work of all awardees is on display in the Jamaica Creative Writing Exhibition
Tour 2013, currently at The National Library of Jamaica until November 22.
Between then and July 15, the Exhibition will move from parish library to
parish library in a clockwise journey starting in Kingston and St. Andrew. I
urge anyone who writes to enter the 2014 contest (final date for entries - last
Friday in June), and to read work exhibited to get an idea of the standard of
the award-winning entries.
Here are some links to other articles about the Awards Ceremony:
Here are some links to other articles about the Awards Ceremony:
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