Winners, runners-up and shortlist

It is our pleasure to announce the 2016 Small Axe Literary Competition winners and runners-up in the short fiction and poetry categories. The works of these artists will be published in Small Axe 53, July 2017.

Since its inauguration in 2009, the Small Axe Literary Competition has been at the vanguard of spotting emerging Caribbean writers. Many of our carefully selected winners during the last six years have moved on to sign contracts with esteemed publishing houses. This is not a coincidence. The Small Axe Literary Competition's changing panel of judges is continuously represented by some of the best creative writers working within the Caribbean region and its diaspora. These judges excel in identifying extraordinary literary achievements. This year’s judges include Diana McCaulay, Monique Roffey, and Sasenarine Persaud in the short fiction category, and James Christopher Aboud, Honor Ford-Smith, and Tanya Shirley in the poetry competition. You can find the judges’ bios on our website here. Take a look into our Literary Competition archive to learn about past judges and winners.

This year we received a record number of submissions in both the poetry and short fiction categories. Outstanding entries from across the region and its diaspora have each been thoroughly evaluated and ranked in a blind review process. While the high quality of each submission challenges the selection process, two submissions in each category were particularly noticeable.

Short Fiction

First Place: “Mango Feast” by Portia Subran, of Chaguanas, Trinidad and Tobago

Portia Subran is a Trinidadian artist and writer. Her artwork has been featured in Arc magazine, children’s novels and has been displayed at the Art Society of Trinidad and Tobago end of year exhibitions. In 2013, she was announced the winner of the Potbake Productions 2011-2013 Caribbean Short Story Competition with her work, “Unclipped Wings.” This work was later published in the short story collection Jewels of the Caribbean. Her short story “A New Life in a New Time” was published in the 2016 speculative fiction anthology New Worlds, Old Ways: Speculative Tales from the Caribbean. 

You can learn more about Subran’s art and writing and connect with her on social media on Facebook and Instagram

Second Place: “Public Notice” by Ayanna Gillian Lloyd, of Diego Martin, Trinidad and Tobago

Ayanna Gillian Lloyd is a fiction and creative non-fiction writer from Trinidad and Tobago.  Her work has been published in The Caribbean Writer and shortlisted for the Small Axe Literary Competition and the Wasafiri New Writing Prize. She has also been featured in the Bocas Lit Fest “Who's Next?” segment in 2014 and 2015. She is a Consulting Fiction Editor of Moko magazine and a 2016 Callaloo Writing Workshop Fellow.

Poetry

First Place: “Learning to Swim” by Soyini Ayanna Forde, of Trinidad and Tobago

Soyini Ayanna Forde grew up and spent the majority of her life in Trinidad and Tobago. Her poetry and creative nonfiction can be found in Apogee, Cleaver, Moko, sx salon, the Caribbean Writer and and Black Renaissance/Renaissance Noire. Taste of Hibiscus, her poetry chapbook, is available from Dancing Girl Press. Her fiction appears inside Akashic Books’ Duppy Thursday series and St. Somewhere Journal. She has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and her writing was listed as a notable essay of 2016 in The Best American Essays. A graduate of the Stonecoast MFA program, she resides in Florida, pines for fresh Julie mango and blogs about race, feminism and West Indian pop culture while working on her first full-length collection of poems.

Second Place: “Extra Lessons” by Chenee Daley, originally from Savanna-la-mar now living in Kingston, Jamaica

Chenee Daley notes: I’m a Westmoreland transplant, who found myself, some years ago, in Kingston. I try to live my life exhaustingly but I also don’t do anything I don’t love anymore. At the moment I’m completing a degree in Literature with a minor in music at the UWI Mona. I write very vulnerable poetry but also dabble in other short-form writing like songs.

Congratulations to our winners!

The Shortlist
Below is the shortlist compiled by our judges. These are writers to look out for in the future. We are delighted to share their names and the titles of their entries with our readers below.

Short Fiction

“The Mango Tree” by Lisa J. Latouche, of Roseau, Dominica

“African Burial Ground” by Heather Barker, of St. Thomas, Barbados

“Ma Diablesse” by Brandon Mc Ivor, of Trinidad who now lives in Yawatahama, Japan

“Purgatorium” by Rae-ann Smith, of San Fernando, Trinidad and Tobago

“The Seascape” by Hazel McShine, of Maraval, Trinidad and Tobago

Poetry

“Lajablesse in Oakland” by Rosamond S. King, of Brooklyn, New York, USA

“Message from Nur Al-Masri” by Sharif El Gammal-Ortiz, of Carolina, Puerto Rico

“Darkening/Freeport” by Richard Georges, of Tortola, British Virgin Islands

“Afterbirth” by Summer Edward, of Realspring Valsayn, Trinidad, now lives in Philadelphia, USA

“The Best Medicine” by Juleus Ghunta, of Jamaica, now lives in Tottori-ken, Japan

“The Dog Breeders House” by Ioney Smallhorne, of Nottingham, England

“Eureka!” by Jannine T. Horsford, of Glencoe, Trinidad and Tobago 

If you are an emerging writer in the Caribbean, you should already be starting to think about your contribution to our 2017 Literary Competition. Please check our website in March when the competition will open for submissions. The deadline for new submissions will be April 2017. Keep in mind that from 2017 we will accept submissions in English, French, and Spanish.

We look forward to hearing from you!

Please join us on Friday, 18 November 2016 for a reception celebrating 20 years of Small Axe.

When: Friday, 18 November 2016 from 4:00pm-5:30pm 

Where: At the Duke University Press booths (204-206) in the exhibit hall at the American Studies Association meeting in Denver, Colorado

Come meet the Editor, David Scott, and other members of the Small Axe Project. There will be a wine and cheese reception with Small Axe posters and tote bags as giveaway items. 

We look forward to seeing you there!

On Friday, 16 September 2016, the Small Axe community gathered at the Sulzberger Parlor at Barnard College to celebrate fifty issues of Small Axe by convening a series of panels interrogating the function and place of journal work among Caribbean academics and beyond. Vanessa Pérez-Rosario, managing editor of Small Axe, convened the occasion, and moderated the event throughout the day.

David Scott, director of Small Axe Project and editor of Small Axe gave opening remarks on the nature of intellectual giving and receiving within the critical framework of the journal community. Over the course of Small Axe's history, Scott has worked to reorient the community of journal work, into one where learning is accessed in the relationship of giving and receiving; creating an expansive and overlapping communal rethinking of the Caribbean. His opening remarks were echoed throughout the day, from a variety of panelists and speakers who have contributed to Small Axe over the last twenty years.

The first panel, entitled "What is Journal Work?" was moderated by Vanessa Agard-Jones, former Small Axe managing editor. Discussion ranged from the future of journal work, the means of journal production, to the role of scholars in digital work. Panel discussants included editors and founders of notable journals: Louis Chude-Sokei of The Black Scholar; Lowell Fiet of Sargasso; Kaiama L. Glover and Alex Gil of sx: archipelagos; Sean Jacobs of Africa is a Country; Kelly Baker Josephs of sx salon; Patricia Saunders of Anthurium; Ashwani Sharma of darkmatter; and Kuan-Hsing Chen of Inter-Asia Cultural Studies: Movements.

The second panel of the afternoon, entitled, "Small Axe Celebration" was moderated by Nijah Cunningham, current Coordinator of the Small Axe Project. Panelists spoke on the conditions of knowledge production within disciplines, their boundaries, and the imaginaries where journal work may intercede through Caribbean modernities past, present, and future. Likewise, panelists highlighted the important work of Small Axe over the past twenty years, like the comprehensive intellectual biographies and interviews conducted by Scott published in the journal, and it's consistent work in individual inquiry through collaborative and editorial practice. This work is anticipated to only push further through the shifting new territories of the Small Axe Project's expansion into multi-lingual publications, and interdisciplinary platforms like sx salon, sx archipelagos, and sx visualities. Discussants included: Hazel Carby of Yale University; Silvio Torres-Saillant of Syracuse University and Latino Studies Journal; and Brent Hayes Edwards of Columbia University.

The occasion concluded with a reception, and participants and contributors over the years continued the conversation about the future of journal work—with Small Axe placed importantly within the history of Caribbean journals. That evening there was a lovely dinner with participants at Solomon & Kuff, where the congenial ambience of scholarship and collegiality remained.

You can watch a full recording of the event here.

Please join us! Friday, 16 September 2016

This year, 2016, Small Axe turns twenty years old. And this year too, our fiftieth issue was published. We are not big on celebrations, it is true, but to mark the occasion we are organizing a roundtable conversation around the theme “What Is Journal Work?” We have invited editors (or founders) of notable journal platforms to help us think about the distinctive work (in all its dimensions) of journals in intellectual and artistic innovation and intervention.

The afternoon will unfold in two parts. In part one we will have a roundtable conversation. In part two we will have a number of people speak about the contribution of Small Axe over the twenty years of its existence. We hope that you will join us on Friday, 16 September 2016 from 1:00 to 6:30pm at Sulzberger Parlor, 3^rd floor, Barnard Hall, Barnard College. Barnard Hall is located immediately upon entering through the main gate of the Barnard College campus at Broadway and 117th Street. 

Part 1: Roundtable Program

What is Journal Work? A conversation
1:00-1:30pm:
Welcome: Vanessa Pérez-Rosario, managing editor, Small Axe
Opening Remarks: David Scott, Small Axe
1:30-3:30pm: Roundtable, What is Journal Work? 
Moderator: Vanessa Agard-Jones, Small Axe, Souls
Louis Chude-Sokei, The Black Scholar
Lowell Fiet, Sargasso
Kaiama L. Glover and Alex Gil, sx: archipelagos
Sean Jacobs, Africa is a Country
Kelly Baker Josephs, sx salon
Patricia Saunders, Anthurium
Ashwani Sharma, darkmatter
Kuan-Hsing Chen, Inter-Asia Cultural Studies: Movements 
 

Part 2: Small Axe Celebration
3:45-5:15pm
Moderator: Nijah Cunningham, coordinator, Small Axe Project
Hazel Carby, Yale University
Silvio Torres-Saillant, Syracuse University, Latino Studies Journal
Brent Hayes Edwards, Columbia University  

5:20pm Closing remarks: David Scott

5:30-6:30pm: Reception