Get your Voice and Message Heard..the First Ever Anguillan Literary Fest Goes Large!

Anguilla Literary Festival 2012

My husband was lucky enough to come across Anguilla Literary Festival on Facebook and send me all the details.
It is a coming together of international authors, editors and actors in the setting of a beautiful Caribbean Island – Anguilla ( Top 10 beaches of the world apparently) and in particular the Paradise Cove Resort (http://paradise.ai/)

I was kindly picked up in a very professional and friendly manner by Access Anguilla (http://anguillaaccess.com/).

It makes such a difference when someone meets you at the port! It didn’t take long until we arrived at the main event venue; the Paradise Cove Resort. The girls on the registration desk were very helpful and obliging as I requested a matching purple lanyard for my badge to go with the dress I was wearing, very sweet.

I tucked into a hearty breakfast of Anguillan porridge, fresh mouth-watering Caribbean Fruit and my favourite – Jonny Cakes (a bit like donuts but without all the sugar! Not so good for the waistline but hey ho) I witnessed the powerful and motivational Hill Harper (3 Times NY Times Best Seller – one being Letters to a Young Brother and actor on CSI;NY – Latest Venture – http://www.manifestyourdestiny.org ), Sheryl Lee Ralph ( Dreamgirls on Broadway, Sister Act 2) with her new book Redefining Diva: Life Lessons from the Original Dreamgirl and Terry McMillan – the author of seven novels including Waiting to Exhale (the film with Whitney Houston) How Stella Got Her Groove Back and her latest one Getting to Happy. All very talented writers and engaging speakers..I think they have done this before! Terry in particular had a superbly relaxed but powerful delivery with consistent humour. A very likeable lady!

Amanda with Hill Harper

Amanda with Terry McMillan

As a writer myself I found the panel sessions very useful particularly Mary W Walters who is a well established writer and now doing very well with self publishing and the power of social media (she blogs a lot too) One of her latest two offerings are The Whole Clove Diet and The Woman Upstairs.

I’ll be in touch Mary I still have questions to ask you! Lasana M Sekou from House of Nehesi Publishing (and author of 15 Books; poetry, short stories and monologues – powerful in delivery of the material too! http://www.houseofnehesipublish.com/), Malaika Adero VP and Senior Editor at Atria Books (Simon and Schuster) Marva Allen of Hue-Man Bookstore in Harlem, Marie-Ellena John author of Unburnable and compared at this point by Stephanie Stokes Oliver author and editor of Unity Books.

The atmosphere of the event was enthused with inspiration, excitement, friendliness and a willingness to share great information and wisdom not only with visitors but with local students. It was very heart-warming to see a good 20-30 I believe from local schools who asked very good questions, got their books signed and I have no doubt that a few will definitely turn into great writers!

I also got to meet Sherille Hughes who is the lady behind Paradise Cove Resort and who was there making sure everything went according to plan. They let me take a sneak peak at some of the suites they have for future visits!

Unfortunately I was only there for the first day but will be clearing my diary for the whole caboodle next year!

Congratulations Anguilla on a fabulous event and I’m pretty sure it will be even busier next year so see you all then!

For those of you going on to Sint Maarten, their Book Fair starts this week!

; )