Several Bermudian writers are included in Volume 19 of The Caribbean Writer an annual anthology of new works from the region.

The journal usually covers only the Caribbean Islands and region, but last year for the first time ever, Bermudians were invited to submit their work.

Dr. Kim Dismont Robinson was honoured to work on the project while she was an assistant professor of English, at the University of the Virgin Islands, who also publish the book.

?Well I was so excited that we (Bermudians) were going to get this kind of international recognition,? she said. ?I have known about The Caribbean Writer for years, and part of the reason I went to work at the university was because I thought it would be great to have an opportunity to work on this.

?And if you look at who is on the advisory editorial board ? it is the Caribbean literary canon: George Lamming, Merle Hodge to name a few ? it is almost like the who?s who of Caribbean literature.

?Because we are not geographically in the Caribbean, Bermuda kind of gets pushed to the side a little bit,? she said. ?And because I was there as a faculty member, people were like, ?oh right, Bermuda?.

?So, it occurred to the managing editor Marvin Williams, who is also a professor at the university and a published poet, that although they have did special sections on specific islands before ? they had never included Bermuda.

?So, they sent out a call for submissions and we had a lot of work come through and we have between nine and 11 poets and short story writers who were shortlisted. The journal is about 300 pages long and about 60 pages have been devoted to the special Bermuda section.?

All the material, which is used in the book, has to be previously unpublished works.

?As a member of the editorial board one of the things I had to do was to vet the submissions, and they were blind ? in other words we got the poem without the name of the person attached to it. ?We get so many submissions every year. But it is mainly poetry, short fiction, interviews, primarily by people who are either in the Caribbean or have an interest in the area.?

When asked how many people entered from Bermuda, Ms Dismont Robinson said: ?Well, I don?t know because it would have been a conflict of interest, but I think in general there were not a lot of submissions from unknown writers or people who had not been contributing on a regular basis.

?In a way I think from what I have seen in here is that it is quite representative of the literary scene in Bermuda.

?We have some of the usuals like Andra Simons, Ron Lightbourne, Saskia Wolsak and then there were some people, in which it was their first time being published like Lisa Howie, Margaret Ann Hearn and Angela Barry has three pieces in here.

?Other writers include Alan Smith, Chris Astwood, Lisa Howie, Llewella Rewan-Dowling and Jane Downing. Vernon Clarke also did the artwork for it and I wrote the introduction for it.

?This kind of signals a level of maturity as to where the bar is for local writers.?

Many Bermudians self-publish their work and during the interview it was suggested that perhaps they felt it was ?Bermuda specific?, but she said: ?I know that people have said things about Bermuda being ?so? specific that it is not accessible in other places, but I don?t think that that is true at all.

?For instance one of the poems that Jane Downing wrote ?Burnt by Fire 1730? is about Sarah Bassett, who was an enslaved women who was burnt down at the Foot of the Lane, and old Bermudians say, ?it is a real Sally Bassett Day? and that basically means that it is really hot and similar to the day when she was burnt at the stake. It was a question of whether or not she was a witch and that happened all over the world.?

The Caribbean Writer is synonymous in launching the careers of many writer in the region.

?For a lot of the new fiction and poetry writers this is the premier vehicle for that,? she said.

?So, I think it is tremendous for the Bermudian writers who appeared in this ? it is tremendous exposure.?

?Even though you have had Bermudian writers published individually, I think this is the first time that there has been a special section of their work, which is available internationally.?

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