Tanya Batson-Savage, Freelance Writer

Entries are now open for the 2006 to 2007 Calabash Writers Workshop for which the Calabash International Literary Trust will grant 50 fellowships to poets and fiction writers. The fellowships will take place over weekend retreats that begin in November of 2006 and ends in June of 2007. Application for entry into the programme ends September 15, 2006.

The 2006 to 2007 version of the programme comes on the heel of significant success from the first series of workshops. In 2005, the trust published six chapbooks from poets who participated in the programme and this year produced Iron Balloons, a collection of fiction from tutors and writers from the workshops.

Additionally, two participants from the workshops have met with individual success. Marlon James had his debut novel, John Crow's Devil released to rave reviews and the text was short-listed for the Commonwealth Writers Prize, the LA Times Book Award. The book was published last year by Akashic Books. Additionally, Ishion Hutchinson has since received a full scholarship to the New York University's Master of Fine Arts (MFA) in creative writing.

The 2006 to 2007 workshops will be taught by Kwame Dawes, poet in residence and professor of English at the University of North Carolina and co-founder and programming director of the Calabash International Literary Festival, who will teach poetry. Fiction will be taught by co-founder and artistic director of Calabash, Colin Channer as well as Gregory Pardlo and David Winn.

Two categories

All the retreats will be non-residential and will take place at 10A West King's House Road. In this staging, the workshops will be divided into intensives and master classes. The master classes are for those who have an existing manuscript that they wish to give some polish to while the intensives are for those who want to produce a manuscript. The intensives programme will be limited to 10 persons while each master class will have five participants.

The first retreat will take place Friday, November 3 to Sunday, November 5. It will be followed by retreats in 2007 on January 12 to 14, March 16 to 18 and June 22 to 24. Fellows for the intensives programme are accepted for the round of four (4) retreats. However, applicants are only accepted for a single master class and applications are only being accepted for the November and January master classes.

Typed, left aligned manuscripts, with numbered pages and 1 inch borders are to be sent along with a non-refundable cheque or money order of $750. Submissions to the Poetry Intensives programme should be no more than 12 pages and include 10 single-spaced poems. Submissions to the fiction intensives should be 12-15 pages of double-spaced short stories or an excerpt from a novel-in-progress. Full manuscripts should be submitted for both the fiction (novel or short story) and poetry master classes.

Submissions should be sent to:

The Calabash International Literary Festival Trust

Writer's Fellowship

2a Bamboo Avenue

Kingston 6

Further information can be had via

calabashfestival@hotmail.com.