LETTER TO THE READERS

• Published in: Callaloo Vol. 40; no. 1; pp. 1 - 3
• Main Author: Rowell, Charles Henry
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Baltimore Johns Hopkins University Press 01.01.2017
• Subjects: Aesthetics; Authorship; Awards & honors; Conferences; Conversation; Crawford, Brent; Creative writing; Creativity; Diaspora; Edwards, Cheryl; Fiction; from the Editor's Notebook; Komunyakaa, Yusef; Mackey, Nathaniel (1947- ); Readers; Rowell, Charles H; Townsend, Jacinda; Woubshet, Dagmawi; Writers
• ISSN: 0161-2492; 1080-6512; 1080-6512
• DOI: 10.1353/cal.2017.0039

In their provocative and exploring presentations, Margo Crawford, Brent Hayes Edwards, Cheryl Wall, Phillip Brian Harper, and Dagmawi Woubshet affirmed much of what the keynote speakers proclaimed, but, by precept and example, the panelists—and many others who also spoke or performed—offered critical discourses that accounted for and elaborated on Callaloo as the incontestable forum which, since its inception in 1976, has served the African Diaspora in the Americas and in Europe. Unlike the conferences, however, the 2016 Oxford gathering focused on Callaloo—its origins, its development, and its future—in the context of not only the quarterly literary and cultural journal as a forum of the African Diaspora, but also as a quarterly publication with allied supporting projects, such as the annual international Callaloo Creative Writing Workshop, the annual Callaloo Not only did the subject and spirit of the opening conversation/interview permeate the entire readings by the poets and fiction writers and the panel discussions on the past and future of Callaloo; the spirit of the keynote event also presided over the final event of Callaloo’s 40th Anniversary celebration at Oxford: a formal dinner in The Hall, with its medieval exterior and interior which pays homage to a number of England’s historic figures.