Jamaican Writers Bus'

The New York Times has an article about Iron Balloons, the fiction anthology edited by Colin Channer, published by one of my favorite publishers, Akashic Books. The anthology features writers from Jamaica's Calabash Literary Festival.

The festival was great. Imagine sunny weather, beach atmosphere, jerk chicken (i love my jerk), reggae music and some of the best authors from around the globe reading and chilling. That's Calabash. It is a vacation for literary lovers.

Colin wrote a story in the collection that's hilarious, which is mentioned in the NYT piece. The first night, to kick off the Calabash festivities, Delroy Lindo read the story. Mind you, the story is written in the voice of an older Jamaican woman. Still Delroy was wonderful and pulled it off like the great actor he is.

What's great about Calabash is that it is action. Colin, Kwame Dawes and Justine Henzell saw a literary void in Jamaica and did something about it.

Marlon James, who wrote one of my favorite books of 2005, John Crow's Devil is a product of Calabash. He found his editor and publisher there. Look out for my interview with him in the next Mosaic Magazine.

So I've said a lot to say: Big up to Calabash. And to the spirit of action.