Sunday links

- The Signifyin' Guyana blog announces a new short story and poetry competition for "Guyanese writers living in Guyana as well as outside of Guyana"; details to come.

- In the Kaieteur News, Petamber Persaud reviews Short and Sweet, a new collection of short fiction by Robert Fernandes (better known to most Guyanese for his photographs).

- In his weekly column in the Stabroek News, Ian McDonald reflects on the meaning of home:

There are days on the Essequibo of brooding clouds, filled with thunder, and brewing squalls and lashing rain-storms marching up the immense reaches of the river, followed so often by a serene calmness in the air, when I have so deeply felt what soul-satisfaction it would give to be able to paint the wind. If ever there was wind that deserved to be painted it is Essequibo wind, how it moves the caravans of clouds, how it roughs up the shining coat of the evening-water, how it makes a green tumult in the crowns of the forest trees, how the birds ride the heavens on it. Please God, if I am born again with the powers of an artist, let me go again to the Essequibo and read the books I love and this time paint the wind.

- The Jamaica Gleaner reports that the Calabash Literary Festival is offering scholarships to the next Calabash Writers Workshop, which starts in Kingston in November.

- Also in the Gleaner, Michael Robinson reviews a new show of photorealist paintings by Jamaican artist Michael Elliott, currently on at the CAG[e] gallery at the Edna Manley School of Arts.



The Rail Alternative, by Michael Elliott

- And in the Louisville Courier-Journal, Joanna Richards interviews Junot Díaz, who will give a reading at the University of Louisville this coming week:

"The thing about being a writer is that you don't really know your work at all. You produce it, but then you step back and you're like, 'Oh my God, what the hell did I just do? This is a lot more confusing and mysterious than I'm giving it credit for!'

"Basically, the book is your answer. For me, the writing empties my head."