July means many things to Bahamians -- summer vacation, Independence holiday celebrations, hurricane season -- but for writers,

July signals the beginning of the four-week long cultural event for budding and established Bahamian writers to come together

to create and discuss great Caribbean literature.
The Bahamas Writers Summer Institute (BWSI) is launching their third summer program on July 2nd with an opening night at the

National Art Gallery of The Bahamas under the theme "Memory, desire and community interconnectedness," chosen by co-creators

and local established writers Helen Klonaris and Marion Bethel.
"I think Marion was really feeling memory and desire and I was speaking with her and I said I really wanted to have something

with community and interconnectedness," explains Helen. "One of the goals of BWSI is to strengthen our connection with the

rest of the Caribbean countries and to be a really significant part of that literary Caribbean tradition, but that interconnectedness

is nothing without memory and desire."
What will follow is four intensive weeks of evening classes by established local writers in either poetry (taught by Obediah

Michael Smith), fiction (Lelawattee Manoo-Rahming), playwriting (Dr. Ian Strachan), screenwriting (Maria Govan) or memoir

(Helen Klonaris). Participants will also take two extra classes that will root their chosen literary genre in the community

and history of local and Caribbean literary traditions through the examination and critical discussions of relevant texts:

Critical Theory (taught by Dr. Krista Walkes) and The Caribbean Literary Imagination (taught by Dr. Toni Francis).
Adding to this group of teachers is guest writer and lecturer George Lamming, a giant in the Caribbean literary world who

has published acclaimed books of fiction ("In the Castle of My Skin") and critical theory in his "Conversations" books ("Sovereignity

of the Imagination, Language and the Politics of Ethnicity"). He will not only give a special lecture under the chosen theme

of the institute which is free and open to the public, but will also teach a master fiction and a master poetry class, which

is also open to the public for a small fee.
"He said he completely resonated with our theme," says Marion. "I certainly hope he will speak to the issue of island nations

in the Caribbean being tied together in our past and present and future, and what that means in terms of our literary imaginations

and how we manifest as individual islands in an island community."
Also special about this year is the visiting writer in the community, who is Haitian novelist, painter and journalist Pierre

Clitandre. It is the co-creators' hope that he will address, though this year's theme, the importance of Haitian-Bahamian

relations as it pertains to the literary arts.
"We knew we wanted to do something that had special relevance to Haiti, after their earthquake disaster," explains Marion.

"So we really wanted to pay attention to what happened to Haiti and what continues to happen with Haiti and sort of talk about

Caribbean integration, Caribbean relationships within the Caribbean."
Another very special event open to the public this year is a writing workshop Pierre will lead with guest teacher Nina Schnall

for creole/English-speaking writers. The event is so important because it gives space and voice to the often overlooked

to Haitian-Bahamian stories that are a part of the Bahamian literary tradition.
"One of the things really central to Helen and I talking about Pierre and Nina is for them to connect with the Haitian-Bahamian

community here, because there have been several Bahamians of Haitian descent in our workshops the past two years, and I think

that's significant and important," explains Marion. "So we hope Pierre in particular has resonance with Haitian-Bahamian

writers here, those who came to our workshop and those who are out there thinking about writing. So we're making a special

effort right now to connect to the Haitian-Bahamian community of writers here."
In fact, there are several events that are free and open to the public, such as "The Writing Life" panels that cover subjects

such as "Sustaining the writing life", "Writing for the screen" and "Publishing at home"; conversations with featured writers;

a book launch; a book-binding workshop; and of course the closing night ceremonies where writers share the work they've created

over the course of four weeks.
That many of the event's activities are open to the public displays a commitment by the institute to develop a love and appreciation

for and celebration of the art of writing in the wider community of The Bahamas, which has been a motivating factor for the

co-creators from the program's very inception.
"My hope is that because of what we're doing, creating together a community of writers, we are validating each other, and

we are telling each other through our community and through our classes that being a writer is a valid way of the world,"

says Helen, whose own experience growing up was one that limited writing as an opportunity for exploration in her life.
"My hope is that the ripple effect will be that there will be young people in The Bahamas right now who will grow up and not

be able to think twice about whether they can be writers, that writers are not a only way in the world but are fiercely important,

that because we have words we can make meaning and we can define for ourselves who we are," she continues. "And that too

is something I hope will be a ripple effect for us too, as a community and as a society, that we value our writers and honor

their visions, that we won't have to be stuck in old stories of who we are, but we are open to who we can be."
In fact, three years ago when they launched their first summer session, the ideas for such an event had been put into motion

many years before, and came out of a craving for one thing: community.
Admittedly, writers, like many artists, are strange people -- they crave solidarity, yet at the same time, need a community

to share with and to validate and place them in a wider literary tradition. But writers and a writing community are vital

parts of the creative society -- they are the uninhibited historians, they are the voice of the marginalized and the voice

of change and the voice of possibility. They remind us that our stories matter, especially the stories of a specific community

-- something incredibly important in the postcolonial Bahamas and wider Caribbean.
But only until recently, hardly any spaces were created or available to Caribbean writers. There was the Caribbean Writers

Summer Institute which operated for five years out of Miami, and the CARIFESTA, but few local opportunities, even for publishing

or reading salons. Yet there was the desire for one -- the journal WomanSpeak, which Helen and her friend Lynn Sweeting co-founded

in that time to provide a space for women writers to be published, is evidence of that.
"In that time it broke open to us the possibility of having literary community together," remembers Helen. "I absolutely

believe BWSI grew out of that time -- out of the conversations, the literary salons, meeting at each other's houses, trying

to find a space where we could honor words and language. It was a long and arduous journey to find that space and celebrate

it."
By the time Helen reached the CARIFESTA X in Guyana in 2008 -- what she describes as a major influence in her decision to begin

planing for BWSI -- that unrest and desire for community could be felt across the region.
"I remember a young man on one of these panels saying that we needed space for memory, we needed concrete actual institutions

that can be homes, houses, sanctuaries, not only for our memories but the stories we're creating today and for our future,"

she remembers. "And it really resonated with me; I wanted that same thing for us, where writers can read to each other and

be witnesses to each other and teach because I really believed that there were generations coming up who were excited about

words and writing."
From there, she sought out Marion to help her. The pair had been involved in many writing and feminist-related groups and

movements before, and had a long friendship and creative kinship and love for the arts.
"She said to me 'Marion, I think it's time for us to do this thing' and I said 'Fantastic'," remembers Marion. "She and

I had both been to the CWSI in Miami in the mid-nineties and we just kept thinking all of us as emerging writers go away for

writing workshops, we go to New York, we go to Pennsylvania, and we thought this is the time for us to bring home these workshops

to ourselves and to emerging writers in The Bahamas. So we just made it happen."
"I think whatever you can imagine that can be done at home in your own space and time and resources, it has to affect the

way you feel about yourself, because if you feel you have to go abroad to do something, it's a different sort of mental space.

But if you think you can do what you want right here, but you can also go abroad, that's a really wonderful synthesis," Marion

says.
Marion and Helen point out, however, that "making it happen" was never difficult -- but finances were. They're eternally grateful

to the organizations who have invested in them and the future of writing, which include the National Endowment for the Performing

Arts, the Inter-American Development Bank, Cable Cares, and for the Windham resort for hosting George Lamming and the Grand

Central hotel for hosting Pierre Clitandre. Such an investment is also an investment in developing the existing community

of writers at home.
Indeed, the ripple effects of the workshop has been realized in many of its participants, who have gone on to publish in established

Caribbean literary journals, study in writing programs abroad, and even publish books.
For one such participant, Christi Cartwright, who attended the first ever session of BWSI, the program altered her life.

Now the official Program Coordinator for BWSI, Christi comes from a background of finance and business. Writing had provided

her with a sense of fulfillment she'd never found elsewhere.
"I always liked to read. I didn't start writing until my MBA because I wasn't getting fulfilled, so I had to think about

getting to a place where I felt comfortable. When I finished a book, I could really feel something, and when I write, that's

how I feel. It was always enjoyable," she says. "I had already decided I was going to try and be a writer. I didn't exactly

know what that really meant, but I figured I couldn't lose anything. So I thought, I'm just going to give this a go."
BWSI cracked open a world of possibilities in the field of writing for her.

Looking at her teachers, she says, and how they

chose to either pursue writing full-time by teaching it, or how they demonstrated that they could have a non-writing-related

job as well as writing career, altered her own ideas of how writing could function in her life.
"It gave me such a strong outline for what I could do. It made my ideal more than an ideal; it made it a goal," she says.

"It gave me a point of reference at the time. I had a support system that gave me structure. The community gave me guidelines.

I feel like I can still ask people in my group to look at my work.

I am confident I can get support from them, and that's

something I think that we have all sustained."
That bond she forged with the writers in her fiction class have lasted to this day. In two years, Christi's writing career

has taken off -- she began publishing her fiction in local and wider established literary magazines, published her first book,

"Surfer's Choice" with Poinciana Paper Press, and is set to leave in a month's time for the University of Syracuse to begin

her MFA in Creative Writing -- a selective program where she will be one out of only six fiction writers chosen out of a pool

of hundreds.

"I didn't know this would happen, but its what I wanted to happen," she says. "The one thing that sustained my hope was

the community, the positive reinforcement through the validation of getting my book published, and seeing other writers in

their own way work towards their goals. "
Her story is one of many testimonials of writers who have participated in -- and continue to attend -- the institute. Such

effects and instituting that desire to create beyond the four-week program were exactly Helen and Marion's hope when they

began.
"I really believe in my soul that this is a major historical intervention," says Marion. "The major impacts and benefits

of it is, in my view, already being felt. The fact that several persons who have been to our workshops have been published

in Caribbean journals after workshops, I think BWSI has helped with that. People certainly have their own impulses and drive,

but what I think BWSI did is provide people with a sense of community, a sense of possibility."
Indeed, the literary world of the Caribbean is more alive today then ever.

More journals are being created and resurrected,

workshops such as BWSI are cropping up (even the CWSI is planning to make a comeback) and Trinidad just finished hosting the

very first Bocas Literary Festival, something which promises to become a major literary tradition. It's an exciting time

for Caribbean writers and thinkers, and BWSI helps us enter into this pivotal conversation.
"I totally believe that we are all influencing each other; that there's this hum underground that we're all tuning into and

bursting out with our own expressions. Once one person catches a fire, everyone else starts to as well," says Helen. "I'm

looking forward to the energy that is stirred up when this happens. When people come together and create energy together

and transform each other because o their energy together, that is alchemy, that is what I'm looking forward to."
BWSI is still accepting applications up until its opening night next Saturday. For application information, contact them

at bahawsi@yahoo.com or check out their Facebook page. For information about the exciting public events during the next four

weeks.
WEEK ONE
July 4th, 7-9 pm:Opening Night at The National Art Gallery of the Bahamas: "Memory, Desire and Community: Interconnect-edness in the Caribbean Literary

Imagination"
July 7th, 7-9 pm:Writers in Community Series at Buy the Book. Conversation with Patricia Glinton Meicholas. Free and open to the public.
WEEK TWO
July 11th, 7-9 pm:The Writing Life at The Hub art gallery. Theme: "Publishing at Home". A conversation with Sonia Farmer, Nicolette Bethel, Patricia Glinton

Meicholas and Obediah Michael Smith. Free and open to the public.
July 14th, 7-9 pm:Guest Lecture with George Lamming at the Harry C. Moore Library, College of The Bahamas, on the theme "Memory, Desire and Community: Interconnec-tedness

in the Caribbean Literary Imagination." Free and open to the public.
July 16th, 10 am-1 pm:Fiction Master Class with George Lamming at the College of the Bahamas. NOTE: $30; open to the public. To register, contact bahawsi@yahoo.com.
July 16th, 7-9 pm:Writers in Community Series at Chapter One Books, College of the Bahamas. Reading and conversation with George Lamming. Free and open to the public.
July 17th, 10 am-1 pm:Poetry Master Class with George Lamming at College of The Bahamas. NOTE: $30; open to the public. To register, contact bahawsi@yahoo.com.
WEEK THREE
July 18th, 7-9 pm:The Writing Life at The Hub art gallery. Theme: "Writing for the Screen". Filmmakers Maria Govan, Kareem Mortimer, and Travolta Cooper explore

the world of screenwriting. Free and open to the public.
July 22nd, 6-9 pm:Transformative Creative Writing Workshop (for Kreyol/English speakers and writers) with Pierre Clitandre and Nina Schnall at the College of The Bahamas. NOTE: $30;

open to the public (scholarships are available for this workshop; no one will be turned away for lack of funds). To register,

contact bahawsi@yahoo.com.
July 23rd, 10 am-1 pm:The Landscape of Memory: Book-Binding Workshop with Sonia Farmer

at The Hub art gallery. Learn how to make your own books by hand. NOTE: $30; open to the public.
July 23rd, 7-9 pm:Writers in Community Series at The Hub art gallery. Reading and conversation with Pierre Clitandre. Free and open to the public.
WEEK FOUR
July 25th, 7-9 pm: The Writing Life The Hub art gallery. Theme: "Sustaining the Writing Life". A conversation with Marion Bethel, Helen Klonaris and Nina Schnall.

Free and open to the public.
July 29th, 6-9 pm: Closing Night at The National Art Gallery of The Bahamas. Student readings. Free and open to the public.
July 30th, 2-5 pm:Book Launch of "Immortelle and Bhandaaraa Poems" by Lelawattee Manoo-Rahming at Chapter One Books. Free and open to the public.

Click here to read more at The Nassau Guardian