UPDATE: Registration link is now available

April 18, 2024: If you’re interested in attending our Writing Studio please register here. The deadline for registration is April 30 so don’t delay if you want to get your first choice of tutor.

April 14, 2024: It gives us great pleasure to welcome Shivanee Ramlochan to our team of tutors. She will be teaching a module titled Poetry as Ferocity. Please visit the Studios page for more information about this.

We hope to have our payment portal up and running tomorrow. We will then be able to start registering participants.

April 9, 2024: We realize that excitement is building as we get closer to May. We will release details of how to register as soon as our payment portal is up and running. Participants will be asked to pay 50% on registration and the balance by May 10. There will be a limited number of scholarships available, demand for these is great and we won’t be able to accommodate everyone, so please plan accordingly. Expressions of interest should be mailed to preewritingworkshop@gmail.com.

March 23, 2024: As we fine tune arrangements for the Studio we will be sharing updates here. Because of an unanticipated clash in her schedule Safiya Sinclair will not be able to join the Studio this year though she looks forward to participating in 2025. We congratulate Safiya on winning the prestigious 2023 National Book Critics Circle Award (USA) for autobiography. According to their website “The National Book Critics Circle awards are given each March and honor literature published in the United States in six categories—autobiography, biography, criticism, fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. These are the only national literary awards chosen by critics themselves.” The NBCC award is a signal honour for the Jamaican poet. As committee member Jane Ciabattari stated, “Safiya Sinclair’s intimately crafted memoir is unforgettable and a shining example of why poets should write prose.” We agree. How to Say Babylon is a courageous and groundbreaking memoir so the award is no surprise to us. We look forward to having her on the programme next year.

Other activities around the Studio include a visit to Kindred-on-the-Rock, Stacyann Chin’s farming venture, an evening at one of Kingston’s live music venues and readings by the great writers convened for our writing extravaganza.

Due to the renewed support of the Prince Claus Fund we will be holding our much anticipated Writing Studio from May 27-30, 2024 on the campus of The University of the West Indies, Mona. Our tutors are all distinguished writers or publishers: Kei Miller, Ishion Hutchinson, Ingrid Persaud, Leone Ross, Garnette Cadogan, Shivanee Ramlochan and Sharmaine Lovegrove. More information about them is available on the Tutors page. For information about the modules they’re going to teach please go to PREE Writing Studios.

At PREE we care about writing so it gives us great pleasure to launch the very first PREE Writing Studio in collaboration with the Department of Literatures in English at the University of the West Indies, Mona and the Prince Claus Fund. We’re assembling some of the most exceptional Caribbean writers for four days in Kingston, Jamaica. If you’re an emerging writer who’s keen to learn from the best we invite you to join us. PREE Writing Studio is for all writers, anywhere, no Caribbean connection required.

When? May 2024

Where? On the beautiful campus of The University of the West Indies, Mona, in Kingston, Jamaica

What? Four days at a residential, boutique studio with our most outstanding writers to get your writing muscles in shape. Each participant will work with one of our writers in their studio for the duration of the four days, getting intimate feedback from a respected author as well as your peers. Groups are designed to be small so that writers can get meaningful attention from tutors.

If you’re an emerging or mid-career writer who wants to learn from some of the smartest, most innovative writers in the world, scroll down to see our exciting line-up.

How to Apply

Once our payment portal is up later this week you can register by filling out the registration form and paying your deposit. Watch the updates to learn when the portal is available.

On Feb 24, 2021, PREE, the digital magazine of Caribbean writing, celebrated the publication of our first print edition Bookmarked, and inaugurated our print arm, PREE ink, with a webinar in collaboration with the Shuttleworth Foundation and the Prince Claus Fund.

The hour and a half long forum featured a poetry reading by Dingo and lively discussion between Diana McCaulay (Judge, The Commonwealth Short Story Prize); Kwame Dawes (editor-in-chief at Prairie Schooner magazine) Luke Neima (deputy editor of Granta) and Annie Paul (editor-in-chief, PREE) moderated by Isis Semaj-Hall (Associate Editor, PREE). The prompt was the following:

Rejection is a big part of any writer’s life, even those considered successful. Writers must constantly submit to magazines, journals, online platforms and/or prizes during publication’s long lead times and nothing makes a bigger impact to a writer’s future than winning a major prize. Submission, however, often means any story, poem or article is one entry among thousands, whether as part of a call for submissions, the slush pile, or a prize entry. How do you make your story, poem or article stand out from the crowd? What are editors and judges looking for? Are there any common mistakes writers make in sending their work out? How can you maximize being long- or short-listed? What are some strategies for dealing with rejection?