INTERVIEW: Sandra Sealy, author of Beauty of the Bald Head - Caribbean Literary Salon

Interview with Sandra Sealy, author of Beauty of the Bald Head

SANDRA SEALY describes herself as “a Barbadian-Canadian raised artist clutching an English birth certificate, emerging from her chrysalis.” She is a former Literary Arts Officer with the National Cultural Foundation (NCF) of Barbados, a former coordinator for the VOICES: Barbados Writers' Collective, and a former coordinator for and winner of the Irving Burgie Literary & Creative Arts Scholarship in Barbados. Sandra is also a performance poet and an award-winning writer of poetry, non-fiction, fiction and drama with work published in the region and beyond. Her poems have been recorded by Kolaiah Studios as a spoken-word jazz CD and her poem Beauty Of The Bald Head (1998) was reinterpreted as a music video directed by Dr. Gladstone Yearwood of the University of the West Indies in Barbados.



Q-Your profile page says that you have an English birth certificate, are of Barbadian descent and have both Canadian and Bajan passports... Do tell.
Well, like many West Indians, my parents were a part of what I call “The Mass Exodus”. You’d be familiar with the period roughly between the 50s and the 70s where several Caribbean people migrated to England, Canada and the United States, in particular, in search of greater opportunity.
So Ishmael Morris (my Pops) and Myrtalene née Layne (my Mom) Morris left Barbados in the 60s and got married in England, where I was born, as well as my brother Ian two years later. When I was two, they moved to Toronto, Canada where I grew up and where my “baby” sister Sue was born another two years later. At twelve, my parents (thankfully, though it was a culture shock at first) decided they wanted to move back to Barbados where I spent my teen years and a goodly portion of my life to date.
So, if I could’ve gotten away with it, I’d have three passports and been a modern day West Indian Mata Hari (except for being an exotic dancer or maybe I would, hmmm…)!

Q-You are a writer and have seen your work published in a variety of magazines. Please tell us a little bit about your work. What genres do you cover? What are your major themes and settings?
I really enjoy exploring a number of genres. (Please forgive me if I don’t answer the questions in order LOL). As a little girl, my favourite subject was English and I wanted to be a journalist when I grew up. While I wouldn’t feel comfortable calling myself that, I do enjoy freelance writing and had started out about 14 years ago, with a small bi-monthly paper. Though I don’t recall getting paid or even a by-line, I was thrilled to see my first piece entitled, “Exploring Second Hand Bookshops” actually in print. I then started doing pieces for Barbados’ two local dailies, The Advocate and the Nation Newspaper, in particular, before moving onto more local, regional, online and one or two international publications.
The funny thing is, way before all this, as a child, I started out with scribbling short fiction stories. Then as a Liberal/Fine Arts student in 1984, at the Barbados Community College, I wrote my first play and ended up being a first place winner for the national Irving Burgie Literary Arts Competition. Much later I was encouraged to write my first poem in 1998 by two friends, via a bout rimé (end rhyme) exercise from Nailah Imoja’s “Rhyme and Reason” column.
Now I also write short stories including flash fiction and I blog. Working with young ones has engendered a couple stories and poetry for children. I’m also picking away at my first novel.
As far as themes and settings go, you can imagine that my moving around would have definitely influenced me. The bold and varied landscapes as well as the rich textures of our nation language and varying creoles and other expressions of our culture, that I appreciate from my own country Barbados as well as travelling in our region, greatly influence my choice of settings, I think.
Women’s issues, HIV AIDS, relationships, motherhood, and nature for sure-especially the sea-seem to appear most frequently as motifs in my creative writing. Our visual art and even music definitely birthed ekphrasis pieces (sounds like a horrible rash but actually a representation of a visual or graphic work inside a literary work).
Personal, life changing experiences like being the first one to talk to mentor Kamau Brathwaite at Cow Pastor, after his experience with ‘Namsetoura‘, is reflected in my poem Kamau’s Spider“, first published in NYU’s inaugural edition of of Calabash: A Journal of Caribbean Arts and Letters.


Q-How did you get started in writing? Were there special circumstances or people that influenced you on this path?
Since reading and writing go hand in hand, like many writers, I was a voracious reader as a shy child. I was such a nerd, I used to read everything including the backs of cereal boxes while having breakfast. Even walk and read at the same time - not impressing my mother one bit!
As I’ve said earlier, English Literature (and even the grammar and stuff) was always my first love and this was reflected in my decent English grades. I had great teachers. Mrs. Snow from 4th grade at Mill Valley Junior in Canada doesn’t know how much her reading “Charlie and The Chocolate Factory” entranced me. Then at the secondary level where I was introduced to Caribbean literature, my English teacher Mrs. Wendy Griffith-Watson at The St. Michael School in Barbados, continued the nurturing. Also had some fabulous Advanced Level English tutors at Barbados Community College like Esther Phillips and Dr. Viola Davis, where I was really exposed to our greats like V.S. Naipaul. Dr. Davis’ vivacity in particular, really made me appreciate poetry.
Years later, with freelance writing, I saw an ad in the paper and started a UK correspondence course (that I never finished) that gave me the courage to write and submit my first article. Then 1998, a little more bravado led to my first freelance Nation Newspaper piece for my Editor, Linda Deane (Shine Magazine). It was actually part travel writing and an exclusive review of the Lauren Hill concert in Trinidad.
I also had tremendous encouragement from editors like Robert Edison Sandiford, Orin Boyce, Dana Gilkes,Randy Baker and Mae Wayne.

Over the years, I’ve done many short courses/workshops, especially with the National Cultural Foundation but I would have to mention how much a summer poetry workshop at the Cave Hill campus with esteemed St. Lucian writer, Kendel Hippolyte, impacted my growth as a literary artist.
Also, it is really the nurturing environment of my writers’ group VOICES: Barbados Writers’ Collective (now led by Maureen Singh), founded by award-winning author Nailah F. Imoja, that was really instrumental about 14 years ago. I’ll never forget attending that first monthly meeting and reading that evening at the Barbados Museum. By then I had written my first article and a couple of poems. Everybody looked so erudite and I was scared shitless to go up for my first ever appearance at an Open Mic. Nailah was really patient and I was walking on air after the audience’s positive response to my work. Haven’t looked back since.
At each step of this journey, I’m grateful for the support of my family, especially my husband, Fred.

Q-What is your academic background? And what is your current day job?
I’m actually a college dropout. Did my first year BA degree at York University in Canada (when I returned for 3 years to work and study at 19), majoring in Business and minoring in French (Huh? The business major bizarre, I know!). Really should have stuck to what I loved instead of chickening out and doing the old “what’s-gonna-get-you-a-job” as far as school went. That madness and begging my mother’s pardon to come home to give birth to my daughter Sharice, resulted in my return to Barbados. In the end this decision, thankfully, led to my eventual return to the Arts. Upon reflection, I’ve benefited from the meandering.
Day job? At the centre of everything, I’m a writer-that’s the occupation listed at the moment in my passport(s). I also do some editing and corporate writing (press releases/profiles/advertorials/fillers/some web content etc.) and sometimes public relations consultancy. I also am fortunate enough to get paid for writing related projects as a creative writing tutor to several children who‘ve inspired “Aunty Sandra” (they‘ve won many awards) and as a storyteller.
Sharing information and giving back is the only way we’ll grow, so I have the privilege of being ‘Lit Mom’ or mentor to two (so far) talented, young writers, Jody Sandiford and Shakirah Bourne.

Q - You are a member of the editorial team at Anansesem, the new online magazine for Caribbean children's literature. More specifically, you are the Poetry editor. What exactly is it that you do here?
Anansesem was created by Summer Edward, “to provide a space to highlight the unique flavor of children's writing and illustration by Caribbean people, and to thereby recognize and stimulate the children's publishing industry in the Caribbean.” In my role as Anansesem’s Poetry Editor, I would be reviewing submissions written by Adults and children for the magazine.
It’s quite exciting. Anyone interested in submitting, must read the writing guidelines carefully at the site. Don’t send work to my personal address please! At the moment we are seeking submissions, including visual art, for our first volume due out in September 2010.

Q-Do you have a rigid writing schedule, or do you write whenever you feel like it/have the time for it? What challenges your writing schedule, and how do you tackle these challenges?
No, I don’t have “a rigid writing schedule” but there are times when I think I should in order to get more done.
Challenges? Biting off more than I can chew at times, some crazy bio-rhythms, a lack of consistent self-discipline, getting bored easily and balancing the creative with paying the bills.
I tend to get results by breaking my writing down into projects over an annual period to meet shifting creative priorities. I manage to get through them by writing down and executing writing goals. Some of them will be in stages to make it easier to meet.
There are other times I’m just inspired - maybe the middle of the night or after a writing festival or poetry reading/slam.
What’s pretty effective is visiting a new environment, like a hotel, for a few days purely to take a writing sabbatical. That always bears fruit.

Q-If you could publish your work in book form, which works would you choose for this, and why?
My aim is to apply some bum glue and finally finish my novel (the word count scares me but taking it a bit at a time). It’s not the great literary novel I thought I would write but escapist contemporary, commercial fiction which I also enjoy reading. Frankly speaking, I’d also like to be able to sell this first work that I write and I think this genre is a way to do that. I do have an agent who’s interested and potentially a Caribbean publisher. I’m really deriving pleasure from the interaction with the characters who are starting to tell me what they want to say.

I also want to write more children’s stories and take the very few that I do have, to another level.
I also want to see at least my first poetry collection, Chronicles Of A Sea Woman finally published. It gained an honorary mention from the Frank Collymore Literary Endowment. Except for pieces being anthologised here and there, it’s gathering dust.
Though not book form, I also look forward to more publishing in an increasingly popular way- by returning to the studio to complete my spoken-word & music album as well as collaborate with musicians like double bassist and singer/songwriter, Brian Wright in Canada. There’s actually something in the works now that’s getting me closer to that.
My spoken-word/jazz CD single Beauty Of The Bald Head (2004) and subsequent music video directed by Prof. Gladstone Yearwood, was really exciting. I’m ready for more.

Q-How would you like to see you writing develop in the next 5 years?
Besides completing my projects I’ve already talked about, I’m excited about exploring screen writing including for animation. Lots of scope there. In addition, I'd welcome more travel writing assignments including resort and restaurant reviews (nothing like getting paid to eat!) as well as editing projects.

Q-You run a Facebook group called Caribbean Writers. How did this come about, and what interests does the group cater to (on a broad scale)?
Caribbean Writers is really a more interactive extension of my blog platform/ website Seawoman’s Caribbean Writing Opps. After exploring Facebook, I realized how many Caribbean writers are connecting there and initially thought of it as a way to drive traffic to the site as well as exchange information with others. So I just set up a page. It turned into a great forum to discuss common issues and immediately share information about updates and offline Caribbean writing groups and related events. Today there are more than 250 members-mainly writers from a variety of genres-from over 22 countries, including 13 Caribbean territories.
A post by a member there (Joanne Hillhouse), actually led me to Caribbean Literary Salon.

Q-You also run two blogs under the name of Seawoman. How did you get started with these? And why are there 2 separate blogs?
Seawoman’s Caribbean Writing Opps. came about to make “order out of my disorder“.
After years of combing numerous resources-websites, e-newsletters, webrings, writing craft magazines-and losing post-it notes with scribbles (and hard drives crashing), for markets and writing competitions, I needed one uncluttered place for this information. The other reason is even after doing all that, how many of these opportunities are our writers actually eligible for?
My blogging buddy, noted writer, Geoffrey Philp gave me much needed guidance and suggestions to get me started. I’m not a techie though comfortable with a PC; I did a course in Desktop Publishing, knew a smattering of HTML and knew roughly what I wanted. So if this labour of love, worked for me, I figured other international (especially Caribbean) writers could get something out of it too. Today Seawoman's Caribbean Writing Opps enjoys a great Google ranking and is sourced by writers from all over the world, who don't even know me. The Wordpress platform allows me to track stats which are pretty decent, even when it's neglected at periods. It also redounded in a personal web presence (always good for a writer) which yielded in some direct opportunities: like being published in “Isla Firme” (Venezuela) and currently being contracted by a Caribbean self-publisher based in the US for a book review.
More of us Caribbean writers need to get even a webpage (like here at CLS) somewhere!

My (woefully neglected) Seawoman’s Caribbean Blogspot was more to delve into the more traditional form of web logging or blogging. I just wanted somewhere to record my thoughts and experiences related to living in a writing whirl.

Q-What is the story behind the name 'Seawoman'?
When I first moved to Barbados as a child, I was mesmerized by the beauty, serenity and the power of the sea and living on an island; something outside of my realm growing up in Canada. Apparently, I’m also a double Aquarian (please don’t ask me what the “double” signifies), the Water Bearer in astrology.

CLS: Thank you Sandra!

Sandra Sealy: Thank you, Anouska. I’m really honoured to be interviewed by CLS. You’re doing fantastic work here.


Sandra Sealy can be reached through the following media:

Email: bcpbarbados[at]yahoo[dot]com
Blog: Seawoman’s Caribbean Writing Opps
Facebook.com: Sandra Sealy
Facebook Group: Caribbean Writers
Skype ID: bdseawoman
Twitter: SeawomanBDS
CLS Profile: Sandra Sealy