Anthology showcases women writers
Thirteen Belizean women writers are to have their literary works published in an anthology of short stories titled: “Memories, Dreams and Nightmares.” The book is the fifth publication in the Belize Writers Series and was edited by visiting East Carolina University professor Gay Wilentz. Wilentz told News 5 that the book is yet another attempt to make the voices of Belizean women heard.
Gay Wilentz, Prof., East Carolina University
“And so our aim is to really get out women’s writing in Belize. and we are very happy to have Zee Edgell to do the forwarding and give us one of her stories as well. So we go from very famous writers like Zee to new and emerging writer who are very interesting and want their voices out.”
Ann-Marie Williams
“Who are some of the women that will be published?”
Gay Wilentz
“We have some well known women in a area, Lydia Loskot and Corinth Morter-Lewis, Myrna Manzanares. But we also have Myrna’s mother, who’s got a short story, her first short story published, her name is Iris Abraham. And in addition to that we have some new writers, one of them my student, Ivory Kelly, and we also have some other writers like Yvette Holland and many new writers.”
Ann-Marie Williams
“What are some of the stories themes from the anthology?”
Gay Wilentz
“One thing is very strange, we just asked for the anthology of women and what we ended up getting was very, very personal stories about some hope, some abuse, some very serious issues about women in this country and other places as well. And we got some very funny stories, like one by Shannon Gillett about women who get their man under any circumstances. So the stories really are about personal ones, this one’s called “Memories, Dreams and Nightmares”, so you can see the kind of structure of the story and the themes. The second one, we plan to look more at historical can cultural issues. But this first one we have…but this is what women wanted to bring out, some of the problems that they see and some of the power that women have in the community.”
The launch of “Memories, Dreams and Nightmares” is scheduled for Friday night at seven at the Institute of Co-operation and Culture Mexico Belize.
