Local Literary Life

Photo, "Storm Clouds" by antpkr, courtesy of www.FreeDigitalPhotos.net

The autumn is well and truly set in, as I discovered when I walked the dog yesterday and got caught in a sudden shower.  Correction.  The sky was bursting with thick cloud and had been for hours.  The TV had been blaring weather warnings about storms for days.  The air was thick with humidity and no-one could bear the thought of wearing a raincoat.  Nothing seemed to be forthcoming so I set off in t-shirt and jeans.  Half an hour later, there is a tempest blasting in from what I think might have been a south-easterly direction, palm trees are bending over and touching their toes and people, myself included, are hugging any bit of building with some kind of canopy for shelter.  It didn't last long, but here we are; autumn.

Which locally means that the literati get more active than usual.  This week, local poets will have submitted their competition entries for the Autumn Festival poetry competition, which I love for the way that the community uses it as a way of getting local school kids reading and writing poetry.  And in a couple of weeks' time, Gibraltar hosts the literary festival, now in its third year and promising to be bigger than ever.  

Find the link to the website on the "Interesting Places to Visit" tab on the left hand panel

There has also been announced a new literary prize, which I'm sure will be of great interest locally because of it's excellent prize fund: £2000 for the first prize and £1000 for highly commended.  While many writers will write for love of the craft, it does help the development of local literature if writers can feed their families from the fruits of their labour, and there are sadly very few outlets in Gibraltar for local writers.  So thank you, Pedro Cabezutto for developing this prize and for launching an enterprising project in terms of a new publishing house.

For while it is important for local government to encourage literature and writing as a form of art, using its own competitions and a grant system, this alone cannot provide the fertile ground that is needed to grow talent.  I have noticed in the past year or so that more and more individuals are self-publshing books, some on-line and some in paper format.  This is great.  It is enterprising and seeing more people willing to expose their creations to the public eye is encouraging to the more timid of us.

Photo, "Abbotsford Library" by Dr Joseph Valks, courtesy of www.FreeDigitalPhotos.net

However, where are all the bookshops?  Where are the venues for browsing books and reading and cultivating a real, cross-community interest in writing and story-telling? Other than the library at the John Mackintosh Hall, and excellent little place it is too.  Without book shops and libraries, perhaps writing classes and workshops, or even a writers group (I think there may be one meeting on a Tuesday morning, I need to find out more!) how do we share our work, learn from each other and from experts.

There is another point I wanted to make while thinking about what a community needs to develop a body of literature of its own - let's face it, Gibraltar, a colony for centuries, still has its to develop a body of literature that reaches out and speaks about its own identity and unique experience as a nation,  without speaking with the voice of its colonial masters.  This is the issue of quality.  Self-publishing is great: I love Kindle Direct and Createspace because I have published this way.  The weakness for a national body of literature is that there is no means of confirming the quality of the writing.  People in a small community buy their friends' books, or because their relatives have written it.  This bears no relation to how good the writing, how captivating the plot, how interesting the character, how controversial the subject.  Gibraltar needs several publishing houses, with qualified and experienced editors.  

Competitions such as the one set up by Pedro Cabezutto and the government certainly go a long way to help - note the deadline for the story competition is 31st October so get scribbling!  Prizes and a ready market for literary work can keep the flow of creativity going.   I hope that the Literary Festival goes some way to give an outlet and promotion to Gibraltarian writers.  This time next year, it would be great to see even more writers from Gibraltar selling books at book fairs, not just in the one shop or to friends and relatives.