I WILL waste no point beating around the bush. I am no politician. The state of literature in Guyana is not where it needs to be, nor where it should be. This is not because there is a great shortage of talented writers in the country. The truth is that there are many young people who want to write, who can write, and yet are denied the opportunity to do so because of a number of varying factors. It is quite easy for the contrarian to point out that in history there have been writers who came from hardships and managed to emerge triumphant with what was to become a classic novel or poem. But is this the norm, or merely the exception? Furthermore, we live in a country where one gets the sense of everyone being depressed (no doubt reflected in our insanely high suicide rate – which even has its own Wikipedia page) and/or being oppressed in some way and/or being generally unhappy. This is the environment in which writers have to create, and given the grim circumstances, there is no doubt in my mind that young writers in Guyana have much to say. So what is stopping them?

Poverty, or the fear of it, is one of the main influential factors that drive anything Guyanese people set out to do. Successive governments have failed to allow a lot of people to feel secure in the positions they hold – “secure”, also referring to the sense of security a job is supposed to bring to oneself and one’s family in all areas. For this reason, the arts tend to take a backseat. I am sure that I am not the only one who has to work all day and write what little I can at night. Similarly, I am sure that there are those who have to work several jobs and write whenever they have time at work or those who work at nights and write during the day when they should be resting for work. It is impossible for one to become a writer in Guyana and to not have any other means of income. These factors, obviously, not only affect the writer and the general climate of writing in Guyana, but it also affects the work itself. What kind of work is being created in an environment that is not riddled by stress and exhaustion, and conducive in any way to writing? Certainly not the best kind of that same work that could have been created had the conditions been different.

A writing residency, offering space and time to select writers in which to complete their work is one initiative that the government can take in order to ensure that writers are offered the conditions that allow for the best possible kind of writing to be done, and in a timely manner. Such a residency can cater for anyone who demonstrates the kind of talent that is apparent in our young people. A residency can be at least a week-long (let’s say to coincide with leave offered by a writer’s day job), with longer residencies also available, depending on the writer and the project. All the Ministry of Education or Ministry of Social Cohesion or the Ministry of the Presidency needs to do is to provide a safe, inspiring space (right here in Guyana – Lethem, the Pomeroon, Canal, etc.) that takes the writer out of the place he/she is used to and invites them into a new environment that allows them to write with basic amenities (food, wifi, etc.) being provided. Certainly, even in this basic sketch of what a residency entails, the merits can be deduced. Surely, the people who dreamed up the Ministry of Social Cohesion can more than come up with a plan for interesting and innovative literary residencies for Guyanese writers.

Such a writing residency, besides giving a writer the freedom to write, creates a sort of tunnel-vision where the writer is allowed to see and work towards a singular goal without any distractions. For a society like Guyana where so much is happening (in politics, in one’s personal life, in the environment), this is the sort of thing that is needed by some people in order to get their work done. Furthermore, if that tunnel-vision idea is applied to a particular goal then it is probable that Guyana’s position in the ranking of contemporary regional literature will rise. For example, if a residency is created and aims to have people write pieces that can be submitted to the annual Burt Award for Caribbean Literature competition (which rewards Caribbean authors who write for children), then the children’s authors in Guyana would get together as part of that residency and work towards the goal that would be the Burt Award. While such a move might increase the chance of a Guyanese author winning the award, more importantly, it also leads to the creation of more pieces of a particular genre of literature. Residencies enable more work to be written – more literature to be created. Of course, such a format can be applied to a range of genres or writers, or no specification at all, which would introduce writers to people and types of writing that they would not have encountered before.

This last point is particularly important because no environment is as conducive to writing as the one that puts writers together in a singular space and having them interact with each other. Such a situation is fertile ground for creativity and collaboration. This is one of the most important tenets of a group residency – where individuals are able to learn from each other and work together to create new and innovative works of art. Also, importantly, group residencies simply allow writers to have a bit of fun, and sometimes, that is all that is needed for the creation of good literary work.
Residencies are a good idea and one that can have tremendous benefits for local writers. The current government has a lot to prove when it comes to the way the arts are treated in Guyana. Do they care? Do they know how important it is for our people and country? As with all things, only time will tell.