Across The Caribbean
by Lyndon Baptiste
I promise to be brief. And honest. Potbake’s 2009-10 Caribbean Short Story Competition is the brainchild of generosity and selfishness. In 2008 I published my first book, and whenever I’m “out there” struggling to market it along with my other releases I meet writers who claim they are “dying to get published – oh so badly! But there’s simply no opportunity!” Naturally as a publisher, writer and baby entrepreneur, I reasoned that such an offering could benefit us both.
Although I promoted the competition via the Internet only, the response was fantastic. There were entries from Guyana, Barbados, St. Lucia and other dots on the map. Caribbean people living in faraway lands submitted stories. Even Europeans, Africans and South Americans entered despite their nationality. When the deadline came at the end of August we had over fifty stories.
To our disappointment more than half didn’t meet the word count requirement. But that’s not the interesting part. Among the remaining stories there was a rainbow of writing styles, creativity, themes and in some cases, unfortunately, the lack of these things of which I myself am sometimes also guilty.
The competition committed to publishing seventeen short stories. The Only Man and Secret love were written by the winner, Raymond Yusuf of Guyana. The other fifteen stirred the judges in one way or another. Today you have the chance to read them yourself and become a judge, for this book, perhaps the first of its kind, is an eclectic snapshot of Caribbean literature.
[from Caribbean Literary Salon, klik hier voor inhoudsopgave van de bundel]
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