Patrice Elizabeth Grell Yursik (Afrobella) is a Trinidad-born writer who currently resides in Miami.

Fragano is the author of Class Alliances and the Liberal-Authoritarian State: The Roots of Post-Colonial Democracy in Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, and Surinam, and he has also published poems in Focus 1983 and the Penguin Book of Caribbean Verse in English.

O Şe Şango, which means in Yorùbá, “Thank you, Shango,” is my first novel and has been three years in the making

Allen’s dark and insightful novel depicts narrator P’s sobering descent into his gambling addiction. P, a Miami native, is a school bus driver and desperate gambler who spends his nights (and many of his days) in South Florida casinos.

The following article is part of a multimedia presentation to young, minority writers at the University of Miami on July 27, 2007. 10. It’s All About You. “You have to be someone.” ~ Bob Marley Whether you have chosen the word or the word has chosen you, the vocation of writing is about creating a self, and this will mean cultivating a set of values that will guide your work. And I mean YOUR work and YOUR values.

My book The Embodiment of Disobedience: Fat Black Women’s Unruly Political Bodies is a project that grew out of my long term interest in the cultural perception of large, black women’s bodies. Growing up as a fat black girl in Jamaica, I loved books and reading, and I always wondered why there were so few characters that looked like me amidst all the Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys novels that I voraciously consumed. When characters that even vaguely reminded me of myself, and I do mean vaguely such as Nancy’s black male butler (or was it her chauffeur?), turned up on the page, I read oh so closely to see what the world’s literary imagine was of me, or at least some aspect of my identity. By the time I began my recent book project, it was clear to me what question I wanted to answer: How is the large black woman represented in both literary and popular venues? How is she perceived? How do her race, size and gender intersect in her representation?

Personal space differs from person to person and from culture to culture. Yet one thing is clear--we all have a right to claim that space and the right to that space is inviolable. However, from the time of the Middle Passage, the intrusion into the personal space and the treatment of "holy space," an area designated for the performance or observation of rituals or ceremonies, within the Black community has been decimated.

4. Although Martha Ann’s Quilt for Queen Victoria is a children’s book, what do you think older readers and parents will learn from it? There are a number of themes that both older readers, parents, and social studies teachers can learn from: believing in one’s self, saving for one’s dream, pursuing one’s dream, honoring one’s creative talents. I visited PS76 in Harlem earlier this year to visit with 4th and 5th graders who read the book. What marvelous questions and comments the boys and girls had about Martha Ann and her story! Several of the students were from outside of the US and could identify with Martha Ann’s travels to start a life in a new country. I have a free book discussion guide for the book at www.BlackThreads.com for parents and teachers.

"But I rejoice because Clifton reminds me always of why writing poetry is important and why it is good to believe this. She has taken many blows to her body through sickness and to her heart through the deaths of so many of those close to her, and yet she has managed to remain resilient, engaged and wonderfully ebullient through it all. Her poetry is a gift to us; that is the good news. But for me, that audience I had with her, and the opportunity to watch her embody the poet’s art, will remain with me for a really long time." Kwame Dawes' very moving and eloquent meditation on James Dickey, Lucille Clifton, and the power and grace of poetry. For more, follow this link over to the Poetry Foundation's blog: Lucille Clifton

Excerpt from an interview @ Global Voices: Over the last year and a half, Geoffrey’s blog has become an important meeting place for Caribbean writers and readers. He posts samples of his own work, short literary essays and meditations, interviews with other writers, news about upcoming literary events, and regular birthday celebrations for major Caribbean authors (most recently, Barbadian poet Kamau Brathwaite). I chatted with Geoffrey recently about his blog and Caribbean literary blogs in general. Here is an edited version of that conversation. NL: Has the blog pushed your writing in different directions stylistically, or in subject matter? GP: The focus of my blog is pretty narrow: to promote my work and the work of Caribbean and South Florida writers. Now, I started off writing as a poet, and I’ve learned not everything can or should be a poem. As I’ve often said to my students in my creative writing workshops, a poem is that bok! of when the ball meets the bat and it shakes you up. A short story is about bottom of the ninth, the bases are loaded, both teams are tied, and the pitcher begins his motion. A novel is the whole shebang–what Henry James called the “loose, baggy, monster.” A blog comes closest to the feel of a novel–it can be anything. This is why I’ve given myself such strict limits about what my blog should be and what it shouldn’t be. By setting such narrow parameters, my writing doesn’t end up all over the place and I know exactly what my subject matter will be. For more of the interview, head over to Global Voices.