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Several of Barbados’ best writers will be celebrated for their craft during the 27th Frank Collymore Literary Endowment Awards ceremony, which takes place on Saturday, January 11 at 6:00 p.m. in the Frank Collymore Hall. The event is free and open to the public.
During the ceremony, the competition’s panel of judges will announce which of five shortlisted entrants – Romario Phillips, Gloria Eastmond, Patrick Michael Foster, Nailah Folami Imojah, and Andie Davis – will take away the $10,000 first prize.
The night’s attendees will also be treated to performances from the finalists in the competition’s spoken-word category, which is now in its second year. Those finalists – Luci Hammans and Cyndi Marshall, Timon Howard, and the inaugural winner Akeem Chandler-Prescod – will be judged based on their renditions during the ceremony, with the winner walking away with $5,000 in cash.
The Central Bank of Barbados established the Frank Collymore Literary Endowment in 1997 as part of its efforts to support the development Barbados’ artistic and cultural landscape.
The full list of finalists and their compositions is below:
| Artist | Category | Name of Piece |
| Andie Davis | Fiction | “Fools and Kings” |
| Ramario Phillips | Poetry | “Soil Remembers” |
| Gloria Eastmond | Poetry | “Blackness Stretches Over the Land” |
| Patrick Michael Foster | Fiction | “It is Written, Book 1” |
| Nailah Folami Imojah | Fiction | “Jamaica’s Exam” |
| Luci Hammans and Cyndi Marshall | Spoken-Word | “Licence to Authority” |
| Timon Howard | Spoken-Word | “Anthemology” |
| Akeem Chandler-Prescod | Spoken-Word | “Monsters are Real” |
The judging panel is chaired by award-winning writer Yvonne Weekes along with guest judge Elise Dillsworth, a literary agent based in London.
Other judges include Dana Gilkes, De Carla Applewhaite, Ayesha Gibson-Gill, Andre Harewood, Andrew Armstrong, Karra Price, Lafleur Cockburn-Jackman, Samuel Soyer and Nicola Hunte.
2025-01-08