The Summer Storyteller, February 2025 · Photo: Reco Moore
Co-Founder · ArtsEtc Inc.
Linda M. Deane
Poet, essayist, editor, publisher · “The Summer Storyteller.”
Linda is a Barbadian poet, essayist, editor and publisher. She is also a creative writing tutor and mentor — a.k.a. “The Summer Storyteller.”
A graduate of the University of Warwick's Comparative American Studies programme (B.A. Hons., 1993), she has over 40 years' experience as a journalist in Barbados and the UK.
She is a co-founding director of ArtsEtc Inc. and its NGO, The ArtsEtc International Literacy, Culture & Environment Foundation (AILCEF).
On Page
Solo
- The Firefly Dreams & Other Quirks of Light: Poems (AE Books, 2025)
- Path to a Heritage Strategy for Barbados: An Independent Report for the Barbados National Commission for UNESCO (2003)
In Press
- Cutting Road Blues: A Narrative
As Co-Editor with Robert Edison Sandiford
- Shouts from the Outfield: The ArtsEtc Cricket Anthology (AE Books, 2007)
- Green Readings, Barbados: The First Five Years (AE Books, 2012)
- The ArtsEtc 2011/12 NIFCA Winning Words Anthology (Foundation Press, 2013)
- The ArtsEtc 2013/14 NIFCA Winning Words Anthology (Foundation Press, 2015)
- The ArtsEtc 2015/16 NIFCA Winning Words Anthology (Foundation Press, 2017)
- Kamau 85 — perpetual online tribute to Kamau Brathwaite on his 85th birthday (ArtsEtc, May 2015)
In Anthologies & Journals
- Bim: Arts for the 21st Century (Vol. 12, 2025; Vol. 8, 2016; Vol. 6, 2013–14; Vol. 5, 2012; Vol. 4 No. 2, 2011; Vol. 1, 2007)
- The Rock Retreat Anthology (2022) & the audio-visual anthology Home (2024)
- PreeLit.com — “Daffodils for E.R. Worrell, aka Mister double yuh aka Wow” (2021)
- Cordite Poetry Review — 81: New Caribbean (May 2017) — “Beyond The River Road”
- Moko: Caribbean Arts & Letters — Firing The Canon special issue (Nov/Dec 2015)
- Kamau 85: perpetual online tribute to Kamau Brathwaite (ArtsEtc, May 2015)
- Give the Ball to the Poet: A New Anthology of Caribbean Poetry (Commonwealth Education Trust, July 2014)
- The Understanding Between Foxes and Light (great weather for MEDIA, 2013)
- The ArtsEtc NIFCA Winning Words anthologies (2011–2020, as editor and contributor)
- Writers Ink: Bazaar Vol. One (2009)
- The Caribbean Writer Vol. 21 (2007)
- Poui: The Cave Hill Literary Annual, No. 6 (2004)
- ArtsEtc (Premier Guide & online editions; 2003 to present)
Writing for Children
- “Laughter in a Tin” and other poems at The Dirigible Balloon
- “Omolaru is Bowling”
- “JoJo Johnson — Chant for a Cricket Hero”
- Big, Bad Rain & Other Poems in Your Ear (unpublished manuscript)
Awards
- 2021 · Frank Collymore Literary Endowment Award (first prize) — My Mother, An Ocean, Smiling: Tales of Memory and Migration
- 2017 · Governor General’s Award for Literary Excellence (NIFCA) — “A Way Back: Phyllis, Freddy, Dexter & Wow!”
- 2016 · Frank Collymore Literary Endowment Award (second prize) and Prime Minister’s Award — Bridgetown
- 2005 · Frank Collymore Literary Endowment Award (first prize) and Prime Minister’s Award — Cutting Road Blues: A Narrative
Off Page
- Creator & host of Clap Hands, Open Mout' — a live storytellers showcase
- Creator & coordinator of ArtsEtc's schools literacy outreach programme Read2Me-Write4Me
- Lead coordinator of 4 Love of Barbados — a Commonwealth Foundation grant-funded storytelling and publishing project under the Read2Me-Write4Me umbrella
- Storyteller, creative writing tutor and learning guide in schools, camps and communities; founder of the Summer Storyteller programme
- Founding director of The Barbados Copyright Agency (B-COPY)
- Founder member of the literary group Writers Ink, organiser of the Bim Literary Festival (Bim LitFest)
- Co-creator of the Bridgetown Literary Bus Tours
- Main coordinator of Bim LitFest Children's Fair (2012, 2014, 2016)
- Co-producer / presenter of Writers Ink's What's That You're Reading? on CBC Q100.7 FM
- Founding member of Ola Ilé / Drum Sisters Collective
- Represented Barbados in the Literary Arts at the Eden Mills Writers Festival, Ontario (2004)
- Represented Barbados at CARIFESTA XI (Suriname, 2013) and CARIFESTA XIII (Barbados, 2017)
- Served as judge and chief judge in NIFCA's Literary Arts competition
- NCF Writers In School and Education (WISE) tutor and (WISETT) teacher trainer