One week left to submit for Caribbean Climate Justice Anthology
Caribbean writers based in the region and writing in English now have an additional week to prepare and submit their poetry, fiction and creative non-fiction pieces to be considered for the Writing for Our Lives climate justice anthology.
The Cropper Foundation encourages would-be applicants to explore climate justice resources available on the anthology webpage https://thecropperfoundation.org/writingforourlives/, where eligibility criteria and submission guidelines can also be found.
To support the development of thematically relevant submissions, organisers have shared recorded webinar presentations from Caribbean experts and advocates across climate change impacts, policy and economics, climate litigation and climate justice as social justice.
Writing for Our Lives was conceived as an 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 initiative is the second strand in the Today Today, Congotay! project, a series of climate justice, arts-based interventions being rolled out over the period 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.
Leading selection process and editing of the anthology is award-winning writer and long-standing friend of the Foundation through his formative role in the development of the Cropper Foundation Residential Workshop for Caribbean Writers, with author and lecturer Merle Hodge, is Professor Emeritus Funso Aiyejina.
He says, “Justice, truth, empathy, and honesty were some of the concepts that often foregrounded our workshop discussions at the Cropper Workshop, no matter the subject. These same concepts are what we must urgently bring to bear on our relationship with Mother Earth. We either speak up in her defence now and force restorative and regenerative actions or we shall be swept away with everybody else as she is forced to respond to our recklessness and abuse with her own uncontrollable vengeance of Moko.”
He will be ably supported by Trinidadian poet, essayist, and critic Shivanee Ramlochan, herself a noted ‘Cropperite’.
“The Cropper Foundation Writers Workshop was transformative to my sense of self as a Caribbean writer, to my ability to name myself as one of us, proud and openly,” says Ramlochan.
She adds, “It brings me such pleasure to be editing alongside the esteemed Funso Aiyejina. His 2010 workshop tutelage, with Merle Hodge, helped immeasurably to guide and sharpen the writer I was becoming, was allowing myself to be. In his hands, this anthology is poised to resonate powerfully. I’m honoured to assist and work with him to bring it to urgent light. Urgent, because our Caribbean is on the frontlines of climate crisis. I’m grateful to The Cropper Foundation for taking up this charge and channeling it through our stories. Never have they mattered more.”
Pleased with the wide-ranging support for the Writing for Our Lives anthology so far, CEO of The Cropper Foundation Omar Mohammed says, “We’re excited about the potential of this initiative to coalesce civil society, state and key institutional actors across and beyond the region as we seek to enliven and expand public consciousness on the fundamental justice issues of climate change.”
Writing for our lives will be published in collaboration with the Bocas Lit Fest-run imprint Peekash Press, producing an initial e-book for international release at the annual landmark climate conference, COP29 in November 2024. Print and audio publications will follow in the first quarter of 2025.
Successful applicants will be announced in July 2024. In addition to receiving expert group and one-on-one editorial support to strengthen their submissions towards the development of final pieces, they will each receive an honorarium on submission of final pieces.
For any queries about eligibility requirements or the application process, email writing@thecropperfoundation.org.
