One of Belize’s premiere writers and story tellers, Ivory Kelly, participated virtually in a literary discussion with other authors from the Caribbean on Friday. The discussion was held under the theme: Literary Conversations on the Caribbean, a Mosaic of Flavours and Textures.
“It’s the thing that makes me feel most in touch with myself–my primary talent and strongest mode of self-expression. And it’s a compulsion; I need to write to feel alive and happy,” said Kelly after spending a heart-warming evening with the Abeng Book Club from the US and fellow Caribbean author and buddy, Joanne Hillhouse.
In the author’s discussion, Kelly took time to read from her story “This Thing We Call Love”, first published in Pepperpot in 2014. The kernel in this story is the fictional character Raymond who falls in love and wants to go to the United States of America.
Kelly explained during the author’s conference that by the age of nine she was an avid reader. She left Sittee River at the age of 11. Even from that young age she aimed to become a writer. She believes that Belize needs to see more books geared for children so that they can see themselves in the literature.
Ivory Kelly is the author of “Point of Order: Poetry and Prose” and “Pengereng”, a ground-breaking collection of short stories in English and standard Belize Kriol, her mother tongue. Her works also appear in journals and anthologies in the Caribbean, the UK, the US, Mexico, Brazil, and Belize.
In 2018, Kelly was the winner of the Copal Distillery Fellowship at the Belize Writers’ Conference, and in 2017 the third and second place winner of the Belize Literary Prize in the poetry and fiction categories respectively. She currently teaches in the Languages and Literature Department at the University of Belize and is a founding member of the Belizean Writers Guild.
For more information, visit her website at http://www.ivorykelly.com
