Stephen Weir articles, editorials and popular social media weir postings

Stories from Little Jamaica earn Toronto writer a place  on Kobo’s Emerging Writer Prize Short List Another week, another Caribbean Canadian author has been nominated for a top national literary prize. Zalika Reid-Benta,  a Toronto-based Jamaican Canadian novelist has made the longlist for the Sixth Annual Rakuten Kobo Emerging Writer Prize. She is in the running for the $10,000 prize for literary fiction for her book  Frying Plantain  was published last year and nominated for the 2019 Giller Prize, Canada’s most prestigious award.    Since then it has won the 2019 Byblacks People’s Choice Awards for Best Author and has been nominated for the Ontario Library Association’s 2020 Forest of Reading Evergreen Award and The Canadian Writers’ Union Danuta Gleed Literary Award. Rakuten Kobo, the Toronto based global eBook and audiobook online seller will be announcing the winners of the Emerging Writer Prize in June. It recognizes exceptional books written by first-time

Etienne Charles and his trumpet waiting out this virus  By Stephen Weir In the old days (last month)  jazz man   Etienne  Charles was a man in motion. Always on the move. He was here. He was there.  He was up on the stage. He was in the air. But that was then.  In the here and now, the 36-year old trumpeter is just like all of our readers.  He has been grounded, his luggage in storage and he is waiting out the virus in his home in Michigan. Trinidad’s  Charles holds a master's of music degree from Juilliard and teaches at Michigan State University. He travels the world playing concerts, recording music and playing Mas in T&T and Canada! "The reason I'm a trumpet player began when I was on a family trip to Toronto as a three-year-old," the trumpeter, recording star, composer, bandleader and teacher told the Camera.“ I visited an uncle and was able to make a sound on his saxophone. At age 10, the same uncle gave me a trumpet and a different mu

Walk or do a Drive By. Absence/Presence: Morant Bay  New Photography Exhibition Opens  By Stephen Weir While all art galleries are closed in the province, there is a new curated photography show on display in downtown Toronto! The Black Artists’ Network in Dialogue (BAND) gallery in concert with the Contact Photography Festival has just launched an exhibition of the work of Jamaican-Canadian photographer Christina Leslie. Although the BAND building on Brock Avenue  remains closed the new exhibition Absence/Presence: Morant Bay is open for viewing on the building’s tall wooden alley fence! The black and white photography show can be seen on foot or from a slow moving car! Christina Leslie takes photographs that delve into and respond to her Jamaican-Canadian heritage and personal family histories. Recently, she returned to her father’s hometown of Morant Bay, the capital of St. Thomas Parish in Jamaica where she found the area in decline. “It was as if time had forg

Poet Caniza Lubrin - another Caribbean Canadian enters the literary winner's circle Score another major literary win for a Caribbean Canadian author. Earlier this week Whitby poet Canisia Lubrin was one of five young Canadian writers to win the Writers’ Trust Rising Star award. The St Lucian born writer was chosen by Vancouver playwright Anosh Irani because he considers her to be one of Canada’s top new writers. Already a gifted poet, Irani says “it will be extremely rewarding for us as she turns her devastating gifts to prose. She will push us and break us in ways that will continue to let the light in.”. The Rising Stars award is a national development program that recognizes talented authors in the early stages of their careers with $5,000 and highlights their work with an endorsement from a proven, influential author. In addition to receiving one-on-one guidance, the five Rising Stars will attend a series of professional and networking events and attend a two-week self-di

Caribbean Cultural Centre Coming to A Computer Near You by Stephen Weir A Different Booklist Cultural Centre (ADBCC) recently partnered with the Afri-Can FoodBasket and Pan Fantasy Steelband to host  Filling the Gap: Love ,  Light and Hope Campaign –  an emergency fund set up in response to COVID-19 “to support and give back to the Caribbean and African Canadian communities.” The proceeds from this fund  provide food items and meals to seniors, single-parent families and those with special needs.  The Cultural Centre is also using social media to provide online programming for children who are at home. “People should check out our FaceBook site and watch what we have on  A Different Booklist Cultural Centre (ADBCC) YouTube channel,” said Itah Sadu, co-owner of  the ADBCC.  ” Folks will see  Welcome to Blackhurst Moments . an online exhibition that commemorates the contributions of Black immigrants to the Bathurst Steet neighbourhood. “All our various social media s

Coming to a computer screen near you is this year’s  Caribbean Tales Film Festival  (CTFF). by Stephen Weir Because of the current virus shutdown, the CTFF will be holding a virtual festival this summer., the Caribbean Camera has learned. “ Like every other festival in the city, we have been impacted by the virus,”  explained Dianne Webley, director of the festival. “This is our 15 th year and there is no way we are going to shut down.,” she told The Caribbean Camera. ” However, those events that we had hoped to put on in the summer months will now be held online. Information will be posted on its website soon.” According to the Webley the festival was set to hold a July 8th media launch, the Festival’s first annual Fundraiser and Reveal of this year’s films. This will, in one form or another, be held online.  “ We also were set to do a number of community outreach projects including film showings with Regent Park (community group). We have contacted the movie

So what is King David up to at home? By Stephen Weir Need quarantine relief? Here's what the Soca King is doing at home Congratulations dear Caribbean Camera reader. You've made it through another week of Ontario’s virtual virus prison. You're seen every movie on your Netflix hit list. You're somewhere between finally doing you taxes or buying yourself a dog so that you have an excuse to be out walking the streets. Don’t get cross. The Caribbean Camera’s Stephen Weir has got your back.  This week he talked to David Michael Rudder, aka King David, about how the Soca star and his family are handling the shutdown. David Rudder has been singing about the Caribbean experience for over four decades now. At the age of 67 he shows no signs of slowing down. In fact while he isn’t performing live right now, he is very active on the Internet producing a must read Facebook account that is newsworthy, thought provocative and entertaining. Earlier this week we c

Strange Masks For The New Times By Stephen Weir Noel's homemade hat mask There was a time not that long ago when wearing a mask into a bank was not the done thing.  This week?  Some local banks require clients to wear masks if they want to enter the building to do their finances. Suddenly the mask – if you can find one – has become an important part of one’s anti-virus wardrobe.  Attempting to buy a mask has become an expensive and often fruitless exercise, so much so that people are making their own, using material they might have on hand! The  Caribbean Camera  has been noticing that many of our readers are using their ingenuity to overcome supply shortages. And while they are using bits of old clothing, odd bits of linen and reclaimed elastic to handcraft personal maks, a few are putting a bit of Caribbean influence into their designs too. Noel's masks at left “ I made one of my masks using one of Saldenah’s caps,” said veteran Mas costume-mak

Popular Stephen Weir FaceBook posting Chucking out files. Came upon a picture from 45 years ago. It is Prince Andrew outside the St. John The Baptist Anglican (North Douro) Church in Lakefield. On behalf of the town I (far left) gave him a handmade Lakefield cedar strip canoe and certificates naming a couple islands after him as well.  What did I get? A parking ticket. Below is the flyer that was given out in Lakefield. Population back then was 2,000 people.

Caribbean Canadian Poet Kaie Kellough  Makes $65K Prize Shortlist! Caribbean Canadian poet Kaie Kellough has made it into to the finals of a very very rich race.  He is one of three Canadian authors in the running for the Griffin Trust For Excellence In Poetry Prize, the country’s richest annual poetry contest. If Kellough’s book Magnetic Equator is chosen later this spring, he will take home a purse of $65,000.00. He is up against Chantal Gibson’s How She Read and Doyali Islam’s Heft. Kellough’s family is originally from Guyana. He was born in Vancouver, raised in Calgary, and now lives in Montreal.  In addition to Magnetic Equator he is the author of the novels Dominoes at the Crossroads, and Accordéon, (finalist for the Amazon.ca First Novel Award), two additional books of poetry, Lettricity and Maple Leaf Rag, and two albums, Vox:Versus and Creole Continuum. The annual Griffin Prize has a jury panel of three poetry experts. Ireland’s Paula Meehan, Jamaica’s Kei Mill

Vancouver poet in the running for the Griffin Prize with a book about Black Womanhood Last week the Caribbean Camera told readers about Guyanese Canadian poet Kale Kellough and his book Magnetic Equator that is in the consideration for the $65,000 Griffin Prize. This week, as part two of the story, we introduce you to Chantel Gibson the author of How She Read . It too is in the shortlist for Canada’s biggest and richest annual poetry prize. Chantal Gibson is an artist and an awa rd-winning teacher. She teaches writing and visual communication in the School of Interactive Arts & Technology at Simon Fraser University. She lives Vancouver with deep roots in Nova Scotia’s black community. How She Read is Gibson’s debut book of poetry. Her poems challenge historic representations of Black womanhood and Otherness in the Canadian cultural imagination. How She Read is a collection of genre-blurring poems about the representation of Black women, their hearts, minds and

Don’t Slam The Virus  If You Are A Struggling Actor Believe it or not, there is a silver lining to the current virus shutdown; that is if you are a budding actress or actor looking to be discovered!  Toronto’s Monologue Slam has moved from the stage to the computer screen and organizers are finding that all of a sudden acting careers are getting launched! For the past 9-years Andre Newell and his cousin actress Oluniké Adeliyi have been staging Monologue Slams in clubs and halls in Toronto, Montreal and in Vancouver.  In March, with the virus shutdown in full force, the Monologue Slam had to make big changes in how it is run; lucky those adjustments are proving to be popular. “ Up until now our Monologue Slam has been an acting competition where actors perform on stage in front of a panel of experts and a live audience ” explained Newell. “ The essence of the event is to give actors a space to play, let them work on their material and build a stronger entertainment