April 26, 2022
The top three Caribbean Magazine Plus (CMP) Short Story, 2022 contest winners will be featured at this year’s Caribbean Literary Conference (CARICON) Festival said Arawak Media’s chief executive officer.
Youri Kemp, also editor of the Caribbean Magazine Plus, told contest finalists at the CMP Short Story Contest Award Ceremony that their winning entries will be featured at this year’s CARICON being hosted from Los Angeles California during June 3through 5. The event will be a hybrid event of in-persona and virtual in order to accommodate as many interested persons from the Caribbean and Central America who love literature.
Dr Nicola Hunte, coordinator in Literatures in English at University of the West Indies and this year’s short story contest lead evaluator, will be organising a panel with the three finalists on a day to be determined at the CARICON.
“This is a great opportunity for these brilliant authors to get their stories in front of authors from around the Caribbean and world, in addition to publishing houses and script writers and people from all sectors of the writing and publishing industry,” said Mr Kemp.
Mr Kemp also said: “These connections can go a long way and if Arawak Media has helped someone along the way to be better than what they are, then it would be all worth it. We will also create a book of about 10 to 15 of the best entries from this year’s contest.”
From this year’s Short Story competition, there were entrants from Aruba, Montserrat, Jamaica, Barbados, Suriname, Belize, Venezuela, Puerto Rico, Dominica, Trinidad and a host of other countries from the Caribbean and Central America.
Dr Hunte said: “I’m really encouraged that each prize winning story came from a different part of the Caribbean. We [evaluating panel] were very surprised by that. So we have a prize winner from Aruba, one from St Vincent and another one from The Bahamas, so we were really encouraged by that because we want that kind of Pan Caribbean reach.”
Arawak Media and CMP definitely want that reach into the Caribbean and Central America and we want to pull out the best authors and storytellers the region has to offer. “We believe we have someone’s oil and we plan on anointing them,” said Mr Kemp.
The CMP short story contest will be hosted again in September of this year to run until the end of December. All persons either from a Caribbean and Central American, or descended from a country within the region are invited to apply as Dr Hunte has agreed to be the lead evaluator again.
If you missed the CMP Short Story Contest Award Ceremony, you can watch the replay on our Facebook Page or our YouTube channel, CaribMag TV.