Selwyn Hinds, Hollywood and working with George R.R. Martin

NO matter where we go in the world, Guyanese often find ways and means to utilise their abilities to make a mark in their surroundings. It is this attitude of “making a mark” that often times sees many Guyanese excelling in various parts of society overseas, and many of them will tell you that it is their strong upbringing that roots them firmly in place, helping them to not only do their best but stay humble while achieving their goals.
Guyanese-born writer, Selwyn Hinds, will tell you no different. In fact, he will tell you that and then some. For Selwyn, who, since moving to the United States has racked up several accolades in Hollywood, his ‘Guyaneseness’ is not just what grounded him- it is his super power.
“As writers, we all have our origin stories; we are all just like superheroes…My origin story is that I am from Guyana. It is the thing that defines me and sets me apart from writers here. It manifests itself in a lot of ways and I think the way I write is an amalgamation of a long list of influences,” Selwyn told the Pepperpot Magazine. “Some of it is a particular kind of British-type of schooling that we use to have back in Guyana. There is a structural way I write that comes from that kind of schooling. But a lot of it is from a bit of a cultural openness and fluidity…
“Growing up in Guyana is different from growing up in the States… it feels like you’re growing up in a part of the world where you have one foot in modernity and one foot in some ancient, undefined world… I grew up with tales of the `Ole Higue’ and the like, and those things will imprint on you, and I think it imprinted on my consciousness early and it has to do a lot with the kind of writing that I have done.”
Selwyn’s beginnings are immersed in being an avid reader, consuming literature that was well above his age group. But he believes that it is the saturation of this mature, often multi-cultural content that has helped his imagination to blossom and also makes a big imprint on his work.
“One of the things you do a lot in Hollywood, you end up telling a very compressed version of your life, and whenever I start that conversation it begins in Guyana in St Gabriel’s where I was a heavy reader. The first commandment of being a writer is ‘thou shalt be a reader.’ I was reading Stephen King and heavy Science Fiction stuff and a lot of comic books and there is something about the cultural mix in Guyana as well… I was reading a brand of comic books that came from India that use to sell back then. It told about Hindu myths and the pantheon of gods. I always had a very cross-cultural upbringing that grounded me in kind of storytelling I do and that is from Guyana,” he said.

HIS WORK, HOLLYWOOD, AND HIS BIGGEST PROJECT YET
Selwyn has certainly come a long way. His journalism and writing career spans books, magazines and television, including working with BET Networks and writing for the New York Times, Vanity Fair, USA Today, Spin, and Vibe Magazine. He has also penned two books, his 2002 memoir, `Gunshots in My Cook-Up: Bits and Bites of a Hip-Hop Caribbean Life’ and 2004’s `To a Young Jazz Musician: Letters from the Road’.

But the last five years of his life have been fully focused on screenwriting, and there, too, he has been quite successful. But perhaps his greatest achievement to date is the recent announcement by HBO that Selwyn would be the writer and Co-Executive Producer of the upcoming series `Who Fears Death’, an adaptation of Nnedi Okorafor’s dystopian Afrofuturistic novel. The most exciting thing about this project is that Selwyn will work with `Game of Thrones’, George R.R. Martin, who is one of the project’s executive producers.
This is a tremendous opportunity for Selwyn, who, himself, is a huge `Game of Thrones’ fan- along with, of course, the rest of the world. On landing the project, he admitted that he was in talks with the HBO representatives for a bit before they causally revealed that Martin would be on the project. “HBO kind of snuck it up on me… [the HBO representative] said ‘I want you to read this book’ and I said ‘This is an incredible book, I would love to develop this’ … after our second meeting, she said, ‘We are going to fly you down to New Mexico so you can talk to one of the producers of the show, George RR Martin,’ and I paused and said you mean `Game of Thrones?’” Selwyn said, laughing. “So they were really casual… but it was then that I realised how big a deal it was and potentially, how big a priority it was for the network. It has been a great relationship so far with all the people on the project and we will see where we are next year this time.”

He said, however, that work on the project is still in its early stages and he has a lot of work to do, including writing the pilot and pitching his vision for the first few seasons of the series.

AFRO-ROOTED NARRATIVES
This project will join quite a few others that Selwyn has worked on which reflect Afro-rooted narratives. Selwyn, who graduated from Princeton University with degrees in English and African-American studies, believes that these stories are extremely important to tell as they contribute to a strong sense of identity among persons of colour. “We are in a

fortunate moment in Hollywood now, after a lot of blood, sweat and tears, where we are starting to see more opportunities about and by people of colour and it is an incredibly important fight because we were existing- not just in America- but across the world right now where the communities of colour, people of colour, are under nervous socio-political pressure.
“It is something that we see and live here in this country under this current government all the time, and because I am an artist my form of resistance comes through my art; comes through my writing, so if I’m able to help a little black girl or boy look at a television screen and be able to identify an emotion, a narrative, an individual, a character that makes them feel like they are part of what matters in the world, then that’s the whole point,” Selwyn said.

CONNECTING WITH GUYANA
Given his prolific career, Selwyn is aware that his influence could be of great use to Guyanese writers back home. He admits that he has been offering some support – though informal- to Guyanese writers who he has only recently been getting acquainted with. “I haven’t done anything formal yet but I have every desire to do so. It’s a matter of what is the best forum and how I can be most useful,” he said. Selwyn says that Guyana has been good to him, and he would be glad to give any type of support he can, as this may help local writers to reach further in their careers. “Writing is a highway. It can literally take you anywhere in the world if given certain types of support or access,” he said. And of course, he wants to bring some work back home and revealed that he is also planning to shoot a film in Guyana sometime in the future.
Anyone who likens their heritage unto their superpower surely must return home often, and Selwyn is no exception. Despite his busy schedule, he returns to Guyana at least once a year to regroup with a “very faithful crew” of old friends from school. “It is very important to stay connected to your home. I can’t imagine my life; my identity if it wasn’t as firmly Guyanese. There are lots of components to how I define my identity… Maintaining that connection culturally through fam and friends is extraordinarily important,” he said.
Soon, the world will know Selwyn Hinds’ name- the Guyanese boy from Queen’s College who went on to write, what could be the next biggest show on HBO. And the best thing about it is that this man will take Guyana with him, every step of the way.