The shortlists of the Brooklyn Caribbean Literary Festival’s Elizabeth Nunez Awards 2022 were revealed on Saturday, August 13, 2022.
The Brooklyn Caribbean Literary Festival (BCLF) is a celebration of culture as expressed through the pen of the storyteller and the voice of the poet founded in 2019. It is designed to facilitate vibrant conversations about Caribbean identity via a series of readings of classic and contemporary stories, podcasts, and conversations.
One of the festival’s most popular features is the writing competitions geared toward unearthing and encouraging the distinctive voice and story of the Caribbean-descended writer and expanding the creative writing landscape of Caribbean literature. The two are the BCLF Elizabeth Nunez Caribbean-American Writers’ Prize and BCLF Elizabeth Nunez Award for Writers in the Caribbean. Patrice Grell Yursik and Akhim Alexis won the awards in 2021.
The longlists for the prize were announced on Friday, July 29, and Saturday, July 30 before the shortlists were revealed on August 13. These are the writers who have made the cute for the shortlists in the two categories;
BCLF Short Fiction Story Contest 2022
Judges: Ayesha Gibson-Gill and Tanya Savage-Batson.
Shortlist
- Kellie Martine Magnus, One for the Books (Jamaica)
- Kwame Weekes, Green Thumb (Trinidad & Tobago)
- Sara Bastian, The Girl With Your Grandmother’s Eyes (Bahamas)
- Vishala Christopher, Jumbie Like Long Hair (Trinidad & Tobago)
- Lisa Allen-Agostini, Meeting Beverley Jones (Trinidad & Tobago)
- Kirk Bhajan, The La Diablesse of Ecclessville (Trinidad & Tobago)
- Alexia Tolas, The Fix (Bahamas)
- Topher Allen, A Familiar Friction (Jamaica)
- Portia Subran, Please Take One (Trinidad & Tobago)
- Denise Westfield, The Valley (St Vincent & The Grenadines)
BCLF Elizabeth Nunez Caribbean-American Writer’s Prize
Judges: D. Ulysse (Haiti) and Ifeona Fulani (Jamaica)
Shortlist
- Jazz Sanchez, Cock Soup (Jamaica)
- Amaris Castillo, El Don (Dominican Republic)
- Rachelle J .Gray, Peter 3:15 (Barbados)
- Elesa Chan, Jumbie (Guyana)
- Yvika Pierre, Nadege goes Home (Haiti)
The winners will be announced later in the year.
