PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad, CMC—The Trinidad-based Cropper Foundation is urging Caribbean writers to participate in the region’s first climate justice-themed literary anthology, “Writing for our lives.”
The non-profit organization said that it would accept submissions from emerging and established, published, and unpublished Caribbean writers across poetry, fiction, and non-fiction genres for the “anthology of stories illuminating the urgency of the climate crisis for people and communities of Caribbean states marked by their varied yet substantial vulnerabilities.”
The project will be launched on Tuesday. The Foundation said the “anthology aims to platform the implications for the health, livelihoods, culture, heritage, and well-being of the many who go unseen, unheard, and, ultimately, unaccounted for at international and local levels of decision-making.”
The initiative is the second strand in the “Today, Congotay!” project, a series of climate justice, multi-media arts-based interventions rolled out over 2023-2026, with funding from Open Society Foundations.
It follows the pilot of a climate justice-themed community micro-theatre undertaking in 2023, executed in collaboration with two secondary schools situated in semi-rural communities in Trinidad.
“We believe our writers and artists are among the most qualified anywhere to interpret, reflect on, and portray the disproportionate burdens of climate adjustment for the most vulnerable groups in our region,” said Omar Mohammed, the Cropper Foundation’s chief executive officer.
“This anthology is essentially a clarion call for our writers to validate the voices of the underrepresented in the climate crisis, that they may be considered too.”
The project builds on the legacy of founders John and Angela Cropper’s vision for a seminal environment for strengthening and exploring Caribbean identity through literature. The Foundation said that through its 15 residential three-week workshops, led by award-winning writers Funso Aiyejina and Merle Hodge, the program has helped mold over 180 Caribbean writers from almost every country in the anglophone Caribbean.
Many of these writers have gone on to publish, with some earning significant regional and global literary distinctions and accolades – among them, Jamaicans Kei Miller and Ishion Hutchinson; Haitian-Canadian Myriam Chancy; Tiphanie Yanique of the US Virgin Islands; and Trinidad and Tobago authors Ayanna Lloyd-Banwo and Andre Bagoo.
Writing for Our Lives will be published in collaboration with the Bocas Lit Fest-run imprint Peekash Press. The goal is to produce an initial e-book for international release at the annual landmark climate conference, COP29, in November 2024.
A regional launch of print and audio publications will follow in the first quarter of 2025.
To be eligible, writers must have Caribbean citizenship, be resident in the region, and be at least 18 by June 7, 2024. Pieces must demonstrate relevance to the theme of climate justice in a Caribbean context. The deadline for submission is midnight on June 7, 2024.
Successful applicants will be announced in July 2024.
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