On Saturday morning, children lined up in the H. Lavity Stoutt Community College Learning Resource Centre according to their age group, waiting patiently to pick out a book to take home.
They were participants in the Literary Wonderland Children’s Programme, one of many sessions held during the fourth annual BVI Literary Festival.
While most of the other events held last Thursday through Sunday were geared toward adults, this one aimed to cultivate a “general love of reading and literature with our youngsters,” HLSCC President Richard Georges told the Beacon.
Other festival goals, he said, included exposing residents to contemporary Caribbean literature and fostering the territory’s own literary talent.
Citizenship lecture
The festival kicked off last Thursday afternoon with a lecture from United Kingdom author and filmmaker David Olusoga, who spoke about the Windrush scandal and other aspects of citizenship in the UK and its overseas territories.
Mr. Georges said he enjoyed the lecture and was glad it was included in this year’s festival.
“I thought it was provocative and very intriguing, particularly as an overseas territory citizen, to see the tiered levels of citizenship that sort of have always been in play in the UK and have wide-ranging ramifications for our own conceptions of identity and belonging in the BVI,” he said.
The lecture was followed by a welcome reception, which featured Mr. Olusoga and Marsha Massiah, the founder and executive director of the Brooklyn Caribbean Literary Festival. The next day, events were in full swing as a dozen sessions featuring writers, filmmakers and other creatives were held at HLSCC.
Filmmakers
That morning at the “Visions in Bloom” event, Virgin Islands filmmaker Camroy Peters showcased three short “sizzle reels” made in a filmmaking workshop he helped lead in March.
Among the attendees were students from HLSCC, Elmore Stoutt High School, St. George’s Secondary School, and Cedar International School, Mr. Peters said.
He added that he found the festival’s theme this year, “Roots to Routes,” to be a “good concept.”
“Really good storytelling has really strong foundations in wanting to say something or change something,” he told the Beacon, adding, “You can get amazing entertaining pieces — you know, the Hollywood engine has created really big blockbuster things — but when you start to strip away all the elements, you really then still come back to core principles of love, family, community: different things like that.”
Brought to tears
Katie Landry, who travelled from St. Thomas to attend the festival, said one of her favourite sessions that day — “Verse and Vision,” where Mr. Georges talked with award-winning Jamaican poets Jason Allen-Paisant and Yashika Graham — brought her to tears.
“They were talking about how poetry, when we write it, it is an act of the divine, and how there are pieces in your life that only you can write,” Ms. Landry told the Beacon. “They’re the puzzle. It is put together in a puzzle.”
Ms. Landry attended the festival last year as well, and she said the friendships she made and the impact on her own writing encouraged her to come back this year.
Trinidadian author Kevin Hosein, who led a workshop called “Roots and Realms” on Saturday, was pleased with the event for similar reasons.
“I always think that literary festivals are a place for writers to connect with each other, to connect with potential readers, to connect with booksellers,” Mr. Hosein said. “And that’s usually always a plus.”
His workshop, he said, focused on “world-building around historical and maybe speculative fiction.” He added that he thoroughly enjoyed hosting the workshop, especially working with the HLSCC students who attended.
“The work that they came up with was on the mark,” he said. “I thought it was quite fitting.”
Mr. Hosein was also featured during the “Sunset Stories” event on Friday at Brandywine Estate Restaurant, where he and fellow Trinidadian fiction writer Celeste Mohammed read excerpts from their recent books and discussed their work with moderator Sauda Smith.
About 75 people attended the ticketed event, and organisers had to bring out extra seats, filling the patio in the restaurant.
Sessions continued Saturday at HLSCC, where local authors including Kenisha Sprauve and Amia and Declan Wheatley read their books to children as blown-up version of pages were displayed on a screen.
Children raised their hands high when Ms. Sprauve asked questions about what can be found on the beach and what animals live in the ocean while reading her book Kimmy Goes to the Beach.
Toward the end of the programme, the children listened to music and stories from folklorist Elmore Stoutt before receiving tickets for hotdogs and ice cream.
Mr. Georges said another children’s programme held on Virgin Gorda on Oct. 5 was much like the one held Saturday on Tortola, except “almost all of the facilitators were from Virgin Gorda.”
Poetry showcase
On Saturday evening, a poetry showcase was held at SushiBar in Road Town. Poets who shared their works included Ms. Graham, Mr. Allen-Paisant, Safiya Sinclair, Kedrick Malone, Zara Pascoe, Darren Muhammad, Premier Natalio “Sowande” Wheatley, and Education, Youth Affairs and Sports Minister Sharie de Castro.
Mr. Muhammad recited two poems, one of which explored the state of local politics, highlighting the rising cost of living and the recent firing of At-large Representative Lorna Smith from her role as deputy premier. Ms. Graham recited poems from her new collection, some of which explored family and sexual assault.
Festival writing competition winners Tanesha Warner, who won the youth category, and Kamal Lettsome, who won the adult category, also took the stage. The festival wrapped up on Sunday with a Book Brunch at 1748 Restaurant at Long Bay Beach Resort, featuring a discussion with Ms. Massiah and Ms. Sinclair, a Jamaican poet and memoirist.
Organisers estimated that more than 400 people attended throughout the week. This year marked the festival’s fourth year and the first time several of the events were ticketed. Mr. Georges said the ticketed events — the welcome reception, the Sunset Stories reading, the poetry showcase, and the Book Brunch — were “well attended and supported.”
The decision to charge for some of the events, he said, was designed to “create a longer term sustainable model” for the festival.
“While we’re very grateful for our sponsors, you know, we are trying to make sure that the festival endures,” he told the Beacon.
While there may be changes in the dates and the length of the programme, the theme for next year’s festival will be “Long Story Short,” Mr. Georges said. He encouraged anyone interested in attending to “stay tuned” on the HLSCC and festival Facebook pages and website.
He also emphasised the importance of supporting VI writers.
“I definitely encourage those folks who are perhaps unable to attend the Lit Fest to, you know, go out and support the local writers when books are launched or when they’re on sale,” he said. “And we’ll be eager to see them, you know, at our events next year.” Ms. Landry encouraged anyone creative to attend next year.
“Don’t sleep on this,” Ms. Landry said. “If you’re creative at all, if you’re human at all, there’s a story inside of every human. And some people tell it through poetry. Some people tell it through art. Some people tell it through dance, through music. However you choose to tell your story, it should come out. The world should hear it.”
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