The US Embassy continues its support for literary and cultural development in Jamaica as a sponsor of the 2007 Calabash International Literary Festival to be held in Treasure Beach, St Elizabeth May 25-27.

US Embassy Public Affairs Officer Glenn Guimond (left) presents a cheque to Justine Henzell, producer of the Calabash International Literary Festival to be held in Treasure Beach, St Elizabeth May 25-27. The US Embassy will support the participation of six American writers at the event.

The embassy will be supporting the participation of African-American poets Elizabeth Alexander, Terrance Hayes and Patricia Smith as well as fiction writers Felicia Luna Lemus, Joe Meno and Aaron Petrovich.

"This is the fifth year that the US Embassy has sponsored artists to attend the festival. We are honoured and pleased to work with Colin Channer, Kwame Dawes and Justine Henzell, and to continue to bring talented American artists to Jamaica," said Public Affairs Officer Glenn Guimond.

American poet and scholar Elizabeth Alexander is presently a fellow at the Whitney Humanities Center at Yale University in Connecticut, United States. Her poems, short stories, and critical writing have been widely published in such journals and periodicals as The Paris Review, American Poetry Review, Prairie Schooner, Callaloo, and The Washington Post, and her work is anthologised in over 20 collections. Alexander has received a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, a Pushcart Prize and the George Kent Award, given by Gwendolyn Brooks.

Pittsburg-based poet Terrance Hayes is the author of Wind in a Box and Hip Logic, which won a National Poetry Series. He is an Associate Professor of Creative Writing at Carnegie Mellon University. Patricia Smith, poet, teacher, performance artist and playwright, is the author of four books of poetry including Teahouse of the Almighty, Close to Death and Big Towns, Big Talk. Smith has been a featured poet on HBO's Def Poetry Jam and has performed her work around the world. She wrote and performed two one-woman plays, one of which was produced by Derek Walcott's Trinidad Theatre Workshop.

Felicia Luna Lemus, who teaches writing at the New School, New York City, is the author of two novels, Trace Elements of Random Tea Parties and the forthcoming Like Son. Brooklyn-based writer of fiction and theatre, Aaron Petrovick is an Associate Editor at Akashic Books.

Former musician and current music journalist, Joe Meno teaches creative writing at Columbia College in Chicago. He has three novels, two plays, and a new book of short stories to his credit.
Other American writers who have participated in past Calabash Literary Festivals include Russell Banks, Sonia Sanchez, bell hooks, John Edgar Wideman and Martin Espada.

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