"Cry to Me": Fatherhood and Domestic Violence

The prevalence of violence, especially domestic violence with Caribbean families, has been one of the themes in my two short story collections, Uncle Obadiah and the Alien and Who's Your Daddy? 

In the short story, "Cry to Me," from Who's Your Daddy, which I've republished as an eBook, I've combined domestic violence with fatherhood in the story of David Hamilton, a respected professor, whose life is disrupted when his daughter becomes a victim of domestic violence.




I think "Cry to Me" is a precursor to a darker story that I am currently working on in which fatherhood turns ugly. Stay tuned.

"The Thanksgiving Kitten" by Geoffrey Philp

Maybe it was the dead calico in front of Desiree's house that finally did it. Or maybe it was the heaviness on her chest since she began taking a new medication. Or was it the bodily pains from fibromyalgia, which had forced her early retirement from teaching kindergarten?

"No more kiddies to save, mother," said Janice, her daughter, before she left for Seattle. Desiree had waited by the phone all day, but Janice hadn't called even though she'd promised to phone every Thanksgiving.

Now only an empty plate from Desiree’s Thanksgiving tuna lay on the counter beside a red vial from her many visits to Aventura's ER.

"Find the thing you love," said the young resident as he carelessly scribbled another prescription for OxyContin.

How Desiree had even gotten out of the bed that she'd shared with her husband until one slap ended their marriage was still a miracle.

Awakened by meowing in her garden, Desiree looked out the window. Nothing.

She couldn’t go back to sleep. Desiree put on her bathrobe and went to the kitchen for her morning routine when she saw the cap of the vial lying on the counter. Desiree had forgotten that she'd taken off the cap.

Opening the cupboard, Desiree took down a glass, opened the fridge, and found a carton of milk hiding behind a bottle of vodka. As she filled the glass with milk, Desiree heard the meowing again.

This time it was louder.

Desiree put the carton back in the fridge, but left the half-filled glass on the counter. Tightening the belt around her waist, Desiree went outside, and looked around the yard. Still nothing.

Desiree was about to go back inside when she heard a shriek. She walked around the side of the house: a ginger tail was stuck in the rainspout.

Desiree bent down and eased her fingers into the sides of the rainspout. The ginger tail hissed. She gently coaxed the tail, hind legs, forepaws, and head into the sunlight.

The kitten licked her hand.

Bundling the kitten into her arms, Desiree went back into her kitchen and poured the milk from her glass into a bowl. Sticking out its pink tongue, the kitten lapped noisily.

Desiree covered the vial. For now, the pills could wait.

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Books by Geoffrey Philp

"A Thanksgiving Fable" by Geoffrey Philp

After a terrible hurricane destroyed their village in Benin, the children of Olokun awakened on a strange land across the sea.
 
"What shall we do?" asked Agana Erí, the youngest. "We can't go back across the water and if we stay here, we will die."
 
"I agree," said Olona, the middle child. "We are doomed."
 
"Our mother would never leave us here alone," said Osupa, the eldest. "We must find a way to get her attention and win back her favor."
 
So the three daughters travelled into the heart of the land and lived off what they could find. As the months passed, they made their homes, each with her own garden. Agana Erí grew corn; Olona planted yams, and Osupa raised poultry. 
 
At the end of the year, the children of Olokun gathered by a palm tree that faced the east and placed their offerings at the foot of the tree.
 
Agana Erí, offered hominy cooked with garlic; Olona boiled yam with coconuts, and Osupa, stewed a white rooster in coconut oil. The children placed their offerings in a large blue clay jar, the color of the seawater, and waited for a sign from their mother. 
 
Osupa faced her two sisters and from what she could remember, picked up a shell, and placed it next to her ear. Then, she turned to Agana Erí and Olona.
 
"What would you like to ask our mother?" 
 
"We demand to know why we are here?" inquired Agana Erí.
 
"We want to know why she has left us?" Olona pleaded.
 
Osupa held her breath and placed the shell next to her ear. Then, she faced the sea and exhaled.
 
"Oh, mother," she said, "your children have asked me, 'Why are we here?' 'Why have you abandoned us?' Please, answer us."
 
Osupa covered the jar with leaves from the palm tree and took three steps back. She circled the tree with flour and made a sign for the four winds in the sand.
 
Olokun's children waited in the silence, but nothing happened. They waited and waited for days for something to happen, but nothing ever did. They watched and waited until the offerings began to rot and ants feasted on the corn, yams, and the chicken.
 
"She did not accept our gifts," said Agana Erí. "She must still be angry with us."
 
"We are lost," said Olona. "We will never go home."
 
"I am not sure what this means," said Osupa as she cradled the shell. "But I do know our mother would never abandon us."
 
"I am tired of waiting," said Agana Erí and she went off to her hut, where the corn towered over the rows of flowers around her front door.
 
"Me, too," said Olona and she marched off to her hut, where the vines from her yams climbed over the branches of the gumbo-limbo.
 
Osupa said nothing, but kept the shell to her ear, waiting for an answer.
Olokun's daughters worked and worked and worked and soon the land was transformed into a garden. Flowers grew along the sides of the hills and streams became as clear as mirrors.
 
But then, one day the wind shifted and the ants began crawling up into the top of the palm tree. Osupa's chickens roosted in the eaves of her hut. The vines from Olona's yams flailed wildly in the air.
 
The winds uprooted the corn and broke off the vines of the yams. The rains lashed their houses and one by one, they fell. Olokun's children ran out into the open spaces toward the sea.
 
"We are doomed," cried Agana Erí.
 
They gathered around the palm that faced the east and looked out at the clouds, which gathered like a dark fist over the land. Afraid, the children said a prayer they thought they had forgotten:
 

I praise the Spirit of the vast Ocean. I praise the Spirit of the Ocean who is beyond understanding.

Spirit of the Ocean, I will worship you, as long as there is water in the Sea.

Let there be peace in the ocean. Let there be peace in my soul.

The Spirit of the Ocean, the ageless one, I give respect. Ase.

 
The winds continued howling across the land and up the sides of the hills. Lightning flashed across the sky and then thunder, like a thousand trees falling in the forest.
 
"It is a sign from our mother, she has come to destroy us," said Olona.
 
"We have offended her and now she shows her displeasure," cried Agana Erí.
 
"Let us see if this is true," said Osupa, and once more, she placed the shell next to her ear and listened.
 
Suddenly rising out of the water, there was the most beautiful woman they had ever seen. She had cowrie shells in her hair, red opals around her neck, and her dress was as white as coral. Her voice was like the sound of the ocean rising out of the depths where no light has ever entered.
 
"Mother, do not kill us," cried Agana Erí.
 
"Why would I do that my children?" asked Olokun. The sea crashed down behind her. "Your prayer brought me here. I am only here to answer your questions."
 
"Why have we suffered so much?" asked Olona.
 
"Why have you rejected our gifts and why haven't you answered our prayers?" asked Agana Erí.
 
Olokun laughed and once again the sea rose up behind her and the wind swirled around her dress.
 
"You are the answer to your own prayers," she said. "Look at this land. Count the gifts with which you were born and the blessings you have multiplied with your own hands. You are the gifts that have pleased me. I will never leave you and nothing you do can ever displease me. I love you, my children."
 
"So why did the hurricane come and take us away?" asked Agana Erí.
 
"Hurricanes come and go. Don't pray for hurricanes to go away. Pray to be strong when they come and stronger when they leave."
 
And with that, Olokun disappeared back into the depths of the sea and everything returned to normal--as if nothing had happened.
 
And from that day on the grateful children of Olokun gathered on this day to give thanks to their mother for the bounty of the seas, the land, and the air

Olokun was pleased and continued to bless them for the rest of their lives.

Image: "Olokun" by Christina Philp

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"Cry to Me" by Geoffrey Philp @ Smashwords

After the birth of his daughter, Pamela, David Hamilton turned away from a life of violence and transformed himself into a respected professor. But when his daughter becomes the victim of domestic violence, David must make a choice between his comfortable life or teaching Pamela's boyfriend that "real men don’t hit women.”

I've decided to publish an e-Short Story for adults @ Smashwords:

http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/71467?ref=Philp

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New Book: The Caribbean Short Story: Critical Perspectives

The Caribbean Short Story: Critical Perspectives

The short story has been integral to the development of Caribbean literature, and continues to offer possibilities for invention and reinvigoration. As the most comprehensive study of its kind, this important and timely volume explores the significance of the short story form to Caribbean cultural production across the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The twenty original essays collected here offer a unique set of inquiries and insights into the historical, cultural and stylistic characteristics of Caribbean short story writing.

The book draws together diverse critical perspectives from established and emerging scholars, including Shirley Chew, Alison Donnell, James Procter, Raymond Ramcharitar and Elaine Savory. Essays cover the publishing histories of specific islands; intersections of the local, global and diasporic; treatments of race and gender; language, orality and genre; and cultural contexts from tourism to calypso to cricket.

Table of Contents

The Editors

Dr Lucy Evans is Lecturer in Postcolonial Literature at the University of Leicester. She has published a number of articles on Caribbean and black British writing, and is currently completing a monograph entitled Communities in Contemporary Caribbean Short Stories.

Emma Smith has a PhD in narrative theory and contemporary fiction from the University of Leeds. She has lectured in post/colonial literature and history at Leeds and Leeds Metropolitan universities and currently works on the editorial team at Peepal Tree.

Mark McWatt is the recently retired Professor of West Indian literature at UWI, Cave Hill. He is joint editor of the Oxford Book of Caribbean Verse(2005).

Source: http://www.peepaltreepress.com/home.asp

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Related articles

• New Book: The Caribbean Short Story: Critical Perspectives (repeatingislands.com)
• Media: The Present Future of Caribbean Literary & Cultural Studies (geoffreyphilp.blogspot.com)
• New Book: Postcolonial Ecologies (repeatingislands.com)
• In My Own Words...Lelawattee Manoo-Rahming (geoffreyphilp.blogspot.com)
• 6th International Caribbean Women's Writing Conference (repeatingislands.com)
• Bocas Lit Fest Set to be a Grand and Festive Affair (caribbeanbookblog.wordpress.com)
• Ten Caribbean authors in the running for OCM Bocas Prize (caribbeanbookblog.wordpress.com)

A Conversation With...Diana McCaulay

Where were you born? Describe current family life.    


I’m a born yah - was born in Kingston, Jamaica. My parents and three of my four grandparents were also born in Jamaica – different parts of the country. I have ancestral connections to Black River, St. Ann’s Bay, Mandeville and Ulster Spring.


I’m married to Fred Hanley, and I have a grown up son, Jonathan, who is an actor living in London. I have two sisters, Marilyn and Suzie – Marilyn lives in Toronto and Suzie in Kingston.


What do you do for a living? Why did you choose this vocation?


I am the founder and Chief Executive Officer of a non profit environmental group called the Jamaica Environment Trust or JET. JET is almost 20 years old, and I have been its full time CEO since 1998 – I worked in the insurance industry before that – have had many different occupations, actually. I became concerned about the natural environment back in the late 1980s because I realized that some gorgeous Jamaican places were being destroyed. One of them was the Palisadoes strip – a place my parents used to take me when I was a child to run up and down on the beach and watch the sunset. I took a house guest there and saw it had become an illegal garbage dump. I thought, someone should do something about this, and gradually, that someone became me. I didn’t know anything about the environment but I started talking to people, reading about it, and the more I learned the more concerned I became. Along with a group of friends and business colleagues, we started JET in 1991 and I eventually left my private sector job to run JET full-time.


Why did I do this? I think Jamaica is a special island, a very beautiful place, and I hated to see the damage we were doing (still doing) to our home. I have a very strong attachment to place, a love for nature, and I think many of our development and social problems are exacerbated by the way we treat our natural resources. It’s an ethical and moral position for me – we have a responsibility to be good stewards of the environment, to function as part of the natural world, not as some kind of exception. As a writer, I’m very interested in rootedness, in a sense of place and belonging, which dovetails with my environmental work.


Who are your three favorite writers? Why?


That’s a hard question to answer, because I may not like all the books a favourite writer has produced and my tastes change over time. But the three writers I will always buy are probably Barbara Kingsolver, J.M. Coetzee, and Kei Miller. But I’m looking at my bookshelves as I’m writing this and thinking: I can’t choose! Don’t make me choose! I love Barbara Kingsolver’s early work – partly because of her attention to place, to minority communities and people. I loved The Poisonwood Bible, which was a much more ambitious novel. Coetzee is brilliant – he introduces so many layers and abstractions in what appear to be short, simple works. My favourite of his books is The Life and Times of Michael K. Kei is my favourite Jamaican writer – he writes in three genres, short stories, novels and poetry – and he is a wonderful performer as well. Try not to read your work in public after Kei has read his! I am reading his new book now – The Last Warner Woman – but have not yet finished it.


What was the first book you fell in love with and how have your reading habits changed over the years?


My mother used to tell me I was reading before I was five, so I probably don’t remember the very first book I fell in love with – maybe the one with Noddy and the train? Too long ago. 


The first book I remember bringing me to tears was probably Black Beauty – I read a lot about animals before I was ten. In my early teens, my father gave me adventure stories, war stories – the novels of C.S. Forrester, Nicholas Monsarrat and later, Ernest Hemmingway. My father convinced me that the only proper subject for literature was war. Then in the hormonal turmoil of adolescence I read the usual romance novels – two I remember being unable to stop reading were Margaret Mitchell’s Gone With The Wind and Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca. I grew up liking the big novel, lots of drama and action and tragic love affairs. When I went to school, there was not much emphasis on West Indian literature, so I did not read Caribbean writers widely. I loved V.S. Naipaul’s A House for Mr. Biswas, which I studied at A-Level – used to comb through it looking for his metaphors. I have always been an omnivorous reader, though, I read many genres, many types of fiction – not much non fiction, unless it is environmental. I read more than one book at a time as well, depends on my mood. Now I am trying to make my reading count – I know I will not be able to read all the books I want to in my life, so I don’t read much commercial fiction. I am also filling the gap of not being well grounded in Caribbean literature. I read prize winning fiction too – hoping the prize judges are doing some selection for me!


What are you reading now?


Kei Miller’s The Last Warner Woman; Liz Rosenberg’s Home Repair and Kevin McIlvoy’s The Fifth Station. Three novels that could not be more different. I just finished Jessica Anthony’s The Convalescent and I cannot recommend that highly enough – Jess is a young writer, this is her first book and it is literally marvelous. The highest praise I can give a book is – I wish I had written it – and I wish I had written The Convalescent.


About the Author


Diana McCaulay is a Jamaican writer, newspaper columnist and environmental activist. She has lived her entire life in Jamaica and engaged in a range of occupations – secretary, insurance executive, racetrack steward, mid-life student, social commentator, environmental advocate. She is the Chief Executive of the Jamaican Environment Trust and the recipient of the 2005 Euan P. McFarlane Award for Outstanding Environmental Leadership. Dog-Heart won first prize in the 2008 Jamaican National Literature awards.

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"Dominoes" by Geoffrey Philp

DOMINOES

“Paul,” my voice cracked, “I know you won’t believe me, but I never meant to hurt you.”


I lowered my eyes and studied the patterns of the terrazzo tiles on the verandah.


“How could you do this to me,” said Paul. “To Angela? To…”


Paul couldn’t say her name. I couldn’t blame him. When Angela and Paul got married, he’d adopted Debby, the only child from Angela’s first marriage. I should know. I was his best man.


You could say, Paul was returning a favor, but it wouldn’t be true. When I got married, Paul had been my best man. When my wife divorced me because I’d slept with her niece, Paul comforted me with silence and Red Stripes.


Now he stood frozen and without Debby’s assistance. She’d always helped Paul to prepare for our Saturday domino games. Debby served the food and drinks, (my favorite, Johnny Walker) while we played against our childhood friends, Roger and Michael. Like Paul and I, after they’d finished their studies in the States, Roger and Michael had returned to live on the same block where we grew up.


As a domino team, Paul and I were unbeatable. We had a sixth sense about the cards each other held. I often wondered why Roger and Michael still showed up to play. Every week we’d beat them, game after game, which usually began at mid-day and finished when we were too drunk to see the dominoes.


That’s how Debby and I got started.


“Help your Uncle David to get up,” said Paul. “He’s an old man.”


“Who are you calling an old man,” I slurred. “You and I are the same age.”


“But I don’t drink as hard,” he laughed.


Debby helped me to get up. I put my arm around her neck and smelled the perfume that I’d given her for her eighteenth birthday, Shalimar—the same one I used to give my wife on her birthdays.


We walked arm in arm to my front door. Although I never remarried, my house was clean and quiet.
“Here you go, old man,” she teased and tucked me into bed.


That was the first time Debby and I made love. For three months, we’d been making love after dominoes. Sometimes, Debby would sneak out of Paul’s house so it wouldn’t be obvious, but most of the times, she came with me at Paul’s urging.


Two weeks ago, Debby told me she’d missed her period. I took her to my doctor and he confirmed our fears. Because Paul was my best friend, I felt I should be the one to tell him.


“Debby is pregnant. I’m the father.”


Angela and Debby had been in the kitchen eavesdropping on the conversation. They moved to the doorway that separated the living room from the verandah.


“Leave now,” said Paul, barely audible.


I turned to go. Debby pulled away from Angela, who was bawling in the doorway.


“He’ll never understand us, Uncle David.”


Debby tugged at my arm and began walking out with me.


“My daughter stays.” Paul clenched his fist.


“No,” Debby screamed.


Despite her protests, I uncoiled Debby’s arm from mine.


“Don’t do this, Uncle David. I love you.”


I nodded and pulled away. Debby collapsed into a pool of tears. But what could I do? I had to respect Paul’s wishes. He was still my best friend.


I walked down the driveway alone. Paul overturned the table and sent the dominoes flying through the air. 


As I pushed through the gate, I could hear the clatter of dominoes falling one by one on the terrazzo tiles.

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Accepting Submissions: GINOSKO LITERARY JOURNAL

Accepting short fiction and poetry, creative nonfiction, interviews, social justice concerns, spoken word recordings for the 10th issue of GINOSKO LITERARY JOURNAL.

Editorial lead time 1-2 months; accept simultaneous submissions and reprints; length flexible, accept excerpts. Receives postal submissions and by email—prefer email submissions as attachments in Microsoft Works Word Processor or Rich Text Format. 

Copyright reverts to author. Read year around.  Publishing as semiannual ezine. Est. 2003.

Check downloadable issues on website for tone & style: www.ginoskoliteraryjournal.com

Use latest version of Adobe Reader.

ezine circulation 4500+. Website traffic 750-1000 hits/month.
Also looking for artwork, photography, music to post on website and links to exchange.

Ginosko Short Fiction Contest: Best Rendering of a Spiritual Awakening. Deadline September 1st, decision October 1st. $1000 prize, $12 entry fee; write money order or check out to “Ginosko”.
Winner posted on website.

Ginosko (ghin-océ-koe)
To perceive, understand, realize, come to know; knowledge that has an inception, a progress, an attainment. The recognition of truth by experience.

Member CLMP. Listed in Best of the Web 2008.

Ginosko Literary Journal
Robert Paul Cesaretti, Editor
PO Box 246
Fairfax, CA 94978
USA

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Book Review: Florida Gothic Stories by Vicki Hendricks

Vicki Hendricks is the most romantic fiction writer in South Florida. I’d always suspected this from her first novel, Miami Purity, and her subsequent works of fiction, Iguana Love, Voluntary Madness, Sky Blues, and Cruel Poetry. But it wasn’t until I read Florida Gothic Stories that I confirmed this suspicion. Many of the stories in Florida Gothic Stories, as the title implies, contain elements of horror and romance with the usual cast of characters that we’ve come to expect in Gothic fiction and the “Penny Dreadfuls” of the Victorian era:  bandits, femme fatales, the beauty and the beast. But Florida Gothic Stories is far from your grandmother’s Gothic fiction.

Instead of Gothic architecture, try the Florida landscape in “M-F Dog”: “The broiling Key West sun was setting as Bob and I strolled the dog down Duval Street, the heat slapping our faces between buildings when there were high walls or borders of bougainvilleas for shade. It was a climate ripe for jock itch” (131). Or instead of ruins: “My ass was tired of driving, and I welcomed the sight of the dented, mildewed trailers on the east side of Lake Okeechobee. Miles of trailer parks with single and doublewides stretched down the road on the  side by the lake, a few of them tidy, landscaped Florida retirement villages, but discarded refrigerators, and broken down cars were the landmarks of my interest” (146).

And you won’t find any persecuted females in Florida Gothic Stories. In fact, Hendricks has collected an impressive assemblage of femme fatales. These women use sex like a weapon to manipulate men into committing murder and armed robbery or to lure them into position in which they become prey. But the women also want love or to be loved. It’s just that their need for money or comfort often thwarts their desire, and the men are often willing accomplices in their own undoing.

In fact, my only criticism of Florida Gothic Stories is that the men are frequently one dimensional—they want only one thing. (Okay, maybe we do only want one thing, but it stings when it is so superbly demonstrated in a work of fiction.)

Finally, Florida Gothic Stories is not for the prudish. In Hendrick’s version of “the beauty and the beast” like the one depicted in “Stormy, Mon Amour” there are scenes of interspecies intercourse that some may find disturbing. Yet, ironically, when juxtaposed with similar scenes of sex between humans, they are some of the most tender passages in the book.

These eleven stories are well crafted narratives by a gifted storyteller. Each delivers what the kind of “sexual stealing” we expect in Gothic fiction, which according to Wendy Walker, has its roots in Jamaica and was once known as “terrorist literature”:

Structurally, gothic narratives are organized around “sexual stealing.” “Sexual stealing” can take many forms, but it always involves the illegal appropriation of a highly libidinized object: a person’s liberty, sexual consent, virginity, life, a sacred object, or a work of art. The stealing is performed by the powerful and is unacknowledged as stealing, indeed proclaimed as legal or honorable: the victim rises up as daemon to avenge the outrage. This is the only narrative solution in a world where justice does not function to protect people.

In Florida Gothic Stories, Vicki Hendricks has added another remarkable collection to her growing body of fiction.

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Vicki Hendricks is the author of noir novels Miami Purity, Iguana Love, Voluntary Madness, Sky Blues, and Cruel Poetry, the last nominated for an Edgar Award in 2008. Her short stories appear in collections including Mississippi Review, Best American Erotica 2000, and Miami Noir. Florida Gothic Stories, a collection of her short works, is due out in May, 2010, by Kitsune Books of Tallahassee. In progress is the novel Fur People, a love story about animal hoarding and insanity that takes place in the woods of central Florida. Hendricks lives in Hollywood, Florida, and teaches writing at Broward College. Her plots and settings reflect interests in adventure sports, such as skydiving and scuba, and knowledge of the Florida environment.

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Small Axe Literary Competition 2010

The Small Axe Project has initiated an annual literary competition to encourage the production and publication of Caribbean fiction and poetry. The Small Axe Literary Competition will focus on poetry and short stories from emerging writers whose work centers on regional and diasporic Caribbean themes and concerns. This competition is part of the Small Axe Project’s ongoing commitment to Caribbean cultural production and our mission to provide a forum for innovative critical and creative explorations of Caribbean reality. With this competition, we hope to encourage and support the region’s rich literary heritage, in the tradition of precursors such as Bim, Kyk-over-al, Focus and Savacou.

The competition will consist of two categories: poetry and short fiction. Two winners will be chosen from each category. Winners will be chosen by a distinguished panel of judges. For the 2009 competition the judges for poetry were Edward Baugh, Lorna Goodison, and Mark McWatt; and for short fiction, Garfield Ellis, Geoffrey Philp, and Merle Collins.

First Prize: $750     Second Prize: $500

Winners of the 2010 competition will be published in Small Axe 35 (July 2011).

Submission deadline: April 30, 2010

Writers wishing to compete for a Small Axe Literary Prize must submit the following to litcomp@smallaxe.net:

    * A double-spaced Word document containing: an original, unpublished short story (maximum 7,000 words), or an original selection of poetry (maximum ten poems, not exceeding ten manuscript pages). Submissions must be blind.

    * A separate document with a one-page biography, including previously published works and full contact information (name, email address, mailing address and phone)

More information available at: http://www.smallaxe.net/literary_competition.php

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Commonwealth Short Story Competition 2010

Enter the 2010 Commonwealth Short Story Competition

First prize of £2,000

Special and Regional prizes of £500

The Commonwealth Short Story Competition is an annual scheme to promote new creative writing, funded and administered by the Commonwealth Foundation and the Commonwealth Broadcasting Association. Each year around 25 winning and highly commended stories from the different regions of the Commonwealth are recorded on to CDs and broadcast on radio stations across the Commonwealth.

Anyone aged 19 or over who is a citizen of a Commonwealth country can enter, whether a professional or amateur writer. Stories should be original, unpublished, written in English and no more than 600 words long. Only one entry may be submitted per person. Commonwealth citizens who are 18 or under can enter the Commonwealth Essay Competition.

In addition to the first prize and four regional prizes, this year there will be special prizes for the best story for children and the best story concerning Science, Technology and Society, the Commonwealth Day theme for 2010.

Entries will be accepted via an online application form on the Commonwealth Foundation's website after 15 February.

There is no entry fee.

Here is the link: http://www.commonwealthfoundation.com/culturediversity/shortstory/


Closing date for receipt of entries: 31 March 2010.

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