Derek Walcott, Nobel Prize winner, once lamented: “Colonials, we began with this malarial enervation: that nothing could ever be built among these rotting shacks, barefooted backyards and moulting shingles; that being poor, we already had the theatre of our lives.” Yet, he is at one with Chinua Achebe, the towering …
Read More »Lisa Allen-Agostini: A stitch in time; sew it begins…
When the Pandemic started and the world stopped, like everyone else, I was thrown into a whole new mental space. Unlike everyone else, I did not learn to bake banana bread or grow marijuana. But in mid-2020, I did feel called to learn to sew—buying a basic Brother sewing machine …
Read More »Write Start: Allen-Agostini calls on young essay writers to develop writing muscle
The following is the full text of the brief address delivered by Lisa Allen-Agostini, chief judge for the 11-15 panel in the Write Start National Essay Writing Contest, at the prize-giving ceremony, held at the bMobile box at the Queen’s Park Oval on Thursday 16 December 2021. Also in attendance …
Read More »‘My story came to life!’ Wired868 Write Start winner, Shara Balkaran, blown away by Brian Lara
There was an unexpected touch of royalty at the inaugural Wired868 Write Start national essay writing prize-giving ceremony yesterday evening at the bmobile suite at the Queen’s Park Oval in St Clair. Parvati Girls’ Hindu College student Shara Balkan won the 11-15 category with a fictional story about how her …
Read More »Write Start (11-15): Can Gabriella Mohammed make it as a writer? Lisa Allen-Agostini offers some advice
“[…] My whole dream was to be a writer and my parents—well, more specifically my dad—always crushed it. My dad wanted me to become a doctor, something ‘useful’. “However I wanted to be a writer. The feeling I felt as I brought a tree or a meadow to life. I …
Read More »$26,000 at stake in Wired868’s new Write Start contest for secondary school students
Got a teenager at home? Think (s)he has a novel or a short story nestling at the back of his/her head just waiting to get out? And what of teenagers in general? Agree that they have lost a lot of the skills that adolescents in your time had, including critical …
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