Iron Balloons

by Channer, Colin

  MARLON JAMES was born in Kingston, Jamaica in 1970. He graduated from the University of the West Indies in 1991 with a degree in Literature. His debut novel, John Crow’s Devil, was an Editor’s Choice in the New York Times Book Review and a finalist for both the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. He lives in Kingston.

  KAYLIE JONES was born in Paris, France. She is the author of five novels, including Speak Now, Celeste Ascending, and A Soldier’s Daughter Never Cries, which was released as a Merchant Ivory film in 1998. Jones has been a Writer in Residence in the New York City public schools through Teachers & Writers Collaborative. She teaches at Wilkes University’s Masters Program in Professional Writing, and chairs the $10,000 James Jones Literary Society First Novel Fellowship. She has led Calabash Writer’s Workshops, and she read from her own work at the Calabash Literary Festival in 2004. Jones lives in New York City with her husband and daughter. “The Anger Meridian” is an excerpt from her next novel.

  KONRAD KIRLEW was born in the parish of Trelawny in Jamaica, and lived in the United States for twenty-five years. He now resides and practices radiology in Montego Bay, Jamaica. He was a student in the first Calabash Fiction Workshop.

  SHARON LEACH was born in Kingston, Jamaica, where she lives and works as a columnist and freelance feature writer for the Jamaica Observer. She has been anthologized in Kunapipi, the Journal of Postcolonial Writing, the Jamaica Journal, and Blue Latitudes: An Anthology of Caribbean Women Fiction Writers. Her essays have also appeared in Air Jamaica’s Skywritings magazine and the Caribbean Voice newspaper. She was one of the first beneficiaries of a scholarship to the Calabash Writer’s Workshop in 2003.

  ELIZABETH NUNEZ was born in Trinidad. She is the author of six novels, including Prospero’s Daughter, Grace, and Bruised Hibiscus; and is the coeditor, along with Jennifer Sparrow, of Stories from Blue Latitudes: Caribbean Women Writers at Home and Abroad. A former fellow at the Yaddo and MacDowell writers’ colonies, and cofounder of the National Black Writers Conference, she is the Executive Producer of the PBS television series Black Writers in America. Ms. Nunez has led Calabash Writer’s Workshops, and she performed her own work at the Calabash Literary Festival in 2002.

  GEOFFREY PHILP, author of the novel, Benjamin, My Son, was born in Kingston, Jamaica and has worked with the Calabash Literary Festival since its inception conducting poetry workshops. His poems and short stories have appeared in Small Axe, The Oxford Book of Caribbean Short Stories, and The Oxford Book of Caribbean Verse. He lives in Miami, Florida.

  A-DZIKO SIMBA is an award-winning poet and short story writer whose work has appeared in a number of anthologies. Born in England to a Jamaican mother and Nigerian father, she has lived in the Caribbean since 1992 and currently resides in St. Mary, Jamaica. She was a student in the first Calabash Writer’s Workshop, and performed poetry at the Calabash Literary Festival in 2003.

  RUDOLPH WALLACE studied Economics at the University of the West Indies and earned an MBA from the University of Toronto. He has written for radio, television, and the Jamaican theater for over twenty-five years. His stories have won gold and silver medals in the annual Creative Writing Competition sponsored by the Jamaica Cultural Development Commission. He was awarded a scholarship to the Calabash Writer’s Workshop in 2002, and was a featured author at Calabash Literary Festival in 2004.