Clarion West Write-a-thon: Week 2 Recap

Writing was a lot harder for me this week. I had a lot of distractions, which made it harder for me to focus on the Week 2 flash fiction prompt, my book review and the short story I wanted to edit. I had to end up sacrificing the short and just focus on the flash …

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Clarion West Write-a-thon: Week 1 Recap

Back in 2020, during the Commonwealth Writers Workshop in Georgetown, my cohort and I were given an assignment. We were asked to bring something small to the workshop that we could part with exchange it with our workshop neighbour, and write a 500-word microfiction about that object. I brought a faux-amethyst necklace and in return, …

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Queer Immigrant Realities showcased in Nicole Dennis-Benn’s Patsy

Originally published in the Sunday, June 5th, 2022 edition of the Stabroek News Dear reader,The review below doesn’t fully capture just how much Patsy affected me as a reader. From the first line, I was punted back to my childhood, to the moment that I, too, stood in the American Embassy line waiting to go …

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Once Upon an Eid: an anthology of childhood hope and joy

Seraj Captures the Moon by G. Willow Wilson and Sara Alfageeh Cast your eyes westward on Sunday Evening and you may just see it: the crescent moon hanging low on the horizon, signalling the end of Ramadan. In just a few hours, billions of Muslims around the world will jointly celebrate the holiday at the …

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Composite of the Redemption in Indigo Cover

Chaos is Power in Redemption in Indigo by Karen Lord

April finds me in a mischievous mood, the joyful memories of Easters past working their way around my subconscious. It’s a season of quick laughter and a hunger for fun, which made me crave a book about tricksters and mischief-makers, and the chaotic energy they radiate. For this reason, I am returning to the first …

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Leone Ross explores the diversity of women’s experiences in Come Let Us Sing Anyway

Originally published in the March 13th, 2022 edition of the Stabroek News Last July, I had the pleasure of reading and reviewing This One Sky Day/Popisho by Leone Ross. I love this book, and its masterful medley of magic, mystery and melancholy still lives in my head rent-free to this day. Just last week, on …

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Letters and Lovers rule in This is How You Lose the Time War

Dear reader, Did you know that February is International Correspondence Writing Month (InCoWriMo for short)? The point of this month-long challenge is to slow your communication down, return to pen, paper and post-office, and write one letter a day to anyone locally or abroad, stranger or friend. I can feel your confusion. You came here …

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A teen mother triumphs in Elizabeth Acevedo’s With the Fire on High

- originally published in the January 23,2022 edition of the Stabroek News I was introduced to Elizabeth Acevedo back in 2020 when I read “Gilded”, her contribution to the short story anthology A Phoenix First Must Burn. Her tale about a young Taino metalmancer starting a revolution in the colonised Dominican Republic was one of my …

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My Year In Review

I write this from a new place and an old place. I am in a new room in a new house, but still in my old neighbourhood. Several stories ended for me in the new year, but this new beginning will carry me into 2022, and shape the year in ways I cannot fully predict. …

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Cover of Redemptor by Jordan Ifueko

Behold the Saviour Empress in Redemptor by Jordan Ifueko

-- Originally published on December 12, 2021 in the Stabroek News Last December, I had the pleasure of reviewing a gift: Raybearer by Jordan Ifueko, which sits on my bookshelf as one of the best books I have ever read, and I was happy to share it with my readers last year. Thankfully, Ifueko herself …

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