This page is specific to my (Joanne C. Hillhouse’s) career as an author. It spotlights Academic studies, Articles & Reports, Guest Posts, Interviews, Shout-outs/Mentions, and Xtras.
QUICK LINKS
Author Bio
Publishing Links: Books Other Writing #TheWritingLife
Reviews
Appearances
Writing and Editing Services #onthehustle
Please explore the site for more on all sides of my writing life. You are, also, invited to connect via my various social media.
ACADEMIC STUDIES
Mentions in scholarly presentations or texts
General –
via twitter
My writing has been studied at Suny Genesco, NY (“Amelia at Devil’s Bridge”, course: Carbbean Narratives, Fall 2018) – also LaGuardia, University of Belize, and the BVI; Hunter College, NY (course: Caribbean Women Writers, Fall 2018)
; St. Joseph’s University, NY (course: Resonant Voices, Spring 2022/2023). The Boy from Willow Bend and/or Musical Youth have been on schools’ reading lists in Antigua and Barbuda, Anguilla, Trinidad and Tobago; and books or stories have been studied or read by students in Dominica, New York, and Italy.
2021, 2017 – “Amelia at Devil’s Bridge” excerpted with discussion questions in Harper Collins’ Concise Revision Course – English A – a Concise Revision Course for CSEC, published in the UK.
2019 – “The construction of memory and power relations in Elizabeth Nunez’s Prospero’s daughter, Andrea Levy’s The long song and Joanne Hillhouse’s Oh gad!” by Andrea Montani – tesis de maestria, Universidad Nacional de Cordoba. EXCERPT: “The borderland between different cultures and their collective memories is a central theme in Joanne Hillhouse’s Oh Gad! This novel revolves around the clash of the different cultural identities inhabited by Nikki, the protagonist, whose quest for a place that feels like home leads her back to the Caribbean island of Antigua, where she was born. Her mother’s death triggers not only the decision to return to Antigua but also the sudden reappearance of memories of her family, her life on the island and her migration to the United States. In the middle of an identity crisis, she returns to present-day Antigua as a stranger to her own family and community, and ends up plunging into collective exercises of memory in a context where remembering becomes a key strategy to assert Afro-Antiguan cultural identities in the struggle against cultural and economic oppression.”
2019 – ‘Published in 2017, the short story “The Other Daughter” by Joanne C. Hillhouse fits the literary movement we call Postmodernism. Postmodernist works can be recognized through themes, context, and narrative techniques. In “The Other Daughter”, we notice that the author explores the theme of feeling like an outcast, isolated from the world one lives in, which is often explored in postmodernist stories. In terms of postmodernist narrative techniques, “The Other Daughter” plays around with the distinction between fact and fiction by letting the narrator tell two different versions of the same story, but at the same time letting the reader know that one version is fictional. Playing around with the ordinary rules of storytelling like this is very typical for postmodern works.’ – from studienet.dk study guide of “The Other Daughter” after it was included in the 2019 Written Exam Evaluation 2019 English STX / HF (STX = upper secondary examination and HF = higher preparatory examination) by the Denmark Ministry of Education.
2017 – ‘As in her poetry and her prose, she uses realism to portray her characters. In so doing, she creates credible characters who eat, dress, and speak Antiguan. Characters with whom we can identify. Even the Asian Ted in Musical Youth confirms “ah ya me barn” (p. 156).’ – from “Joanne Hillhouse’s Iconic Stance on Culture and Youth in Her Works” – a paper presented by Dr. Valerie Combie during the Antigua Conference. Extended version published on this site, with Dr. Combie’s permission in 2018 & in Antigua and Barbuda Review of Books 2018 Volume 11 Number 1
2017 – VIVAS, LMB (Livia Maria Bastos). ‘Caribbean migrations and cultural odds in the novel Oh Gad !‘ In: 13th World of Women and Making Gender 11, Florianópolis. Go here for more.
2016 – VIVAS, LMB (Livia Maria Bastos). “The Identity Building in the Postcolonial Literary Representation of Antigua under the Voice of Native Writers”. (Research report). EXCERPT: “Our specific research corpus aligns the themes dealt with in the plots of Jamaica Kincaid novels, in her novels Annie John (1985), A Small Place (1988) and Lucy (1990); Joanne Hillhouse and (her) works The Boy from Willow Bend (2003) and Oh Gad! (2012); Monica Matthew in Journeycakes: Memories With My Antiguan Mama (2008).” Go here for more.
2016 – VIVAS, LMB (Livia Maria Bastos). “Gender roles in Caribbean Postcolonial Literature in English: an approach to the novel The Boy from Willow Bend“, In: XII ENECULT- Meeting of Multidisciplinary Studies in Culture, Salvador. Go here for more.
2014 – Reference to “Wadadli Pen and Young Writers in the Caribbean”/Bookbird: a Journal of International Children’s Literature Volume 51 Number 4 (October 2013) in Weaving Words: Personal and Professional Transformation through Writing as Research (edited by Janice K. Jones). Cambridge Scholars Publishing. UK, 2014.
2014 – “The influence of anxiety : re-presentations of identity in Antiguan literature from 1890 to the present” – Ph.D. thesis document by Dr. Hazra Medica. From abstract: “This thesis examines Antiguan narratives’ peculiar engagements with the national question. It draws largely upon the works of four writers—Jamaica Kincaid, Joanne C. Hillhouse, Marie-Elena John and Frieda Cassin—and selected calypsonians including Antigua’s leading female and male calypsonians, Queen Ivena and King Short Shirt.” Available through the British Library’s e-theses online service.
2014 – “Discretely Antiguan and Distinctly Caribbean” / hazra medica – Tongues of the Ocean. EXCERPT: “Joanne C. Hillhouse’s 2003 Dancing Nude in the Moonlight and Jamaica Kincaid’s 1997 My Brother leave me awestruck on every re-read by evidence of the crucial role postcolonial literary producers play in setting the agenda for the still fledgling fields of Caribbean gender and sexuality theory. Hillhouse’s and Kincaid’s deconstruction of Antiguan patriarchy not only destabilizes past bad-minded scholarship on family and gender relations in the region. They also offer caution to future scholarship on Caribbean gender and sexuality. The texts assert the necessity of grounding Afro-Antiguan/Caribbean masculinities within the appropriate historical and social sites/matrices. This, they suggest, will produce non-bad-minded accounts of Antiguan and Caribbean expressions of masculinity.”
2013 – ‘In Joanne C. Hillhouse’s 2012 novel, Oh Gad!, the assertion by “Audrey” that her sister, “Nikki” has “smadee” (“somebody”/ “people”) constructs personhood as smadee-ness/somebody-ness achieved through membership in and acceptance by the group. It invalidates the various attempts to deny her sister personhood, and curtails efforts to impose upon her the body of the amnesiac denied history, home, narrative and nation.’ – excerpted from Dr. Hazra Medica’s presentation “‘You Have Smadee’: the Struggle for Personhood in the Antigua Calypso”, at University of Warwick.
2013 – ‘In The Boy from Willow Bend, Vere’s longing for his mother ends when she finally shows up after his grandfather dies (almost 10 years after she had originally left). But when she came, he was a grown man and, more than affection, had many questions to ask her. For example, why she left him behind and never wrote. She explained that she had this great desire to leave their home in Dead End Alley because nothing good could come from there. Vere’s mother represents the Caribbean mentality that the “grass is greener on the other side”, a notion that is yet to be proven as immigrants suffer discrimination and often have a hard time finding jobs in the United States. However, this is seen throughout history in the case of many Puerto Ricans and Dominicans, for example, who leave their islands in search of something better, oftentimes becoming disappointed and left with a great desire to go back home when they realize that what they found is not what they expected.’ – from paper by Vigimaris Nadal-Ramos for her Caribbean Children’s Literature course at the University of Puerto Rico.
2005 – “Another variation of the theme of migration is represented in Joanne C. Hillhouse’s novel Dancing Nude in the Moonlight, which focuses on the lives of three sisters who have migrated from the Dominican Republic to Antigua, in search of a better life. Once there they experience resentment and open hostility and struggle to keep their family together.” – Suzanne Scafe, London South Bank University for Journal of Commonwealth Literature – first published 2005, Sage Publications – linked here from Peepal Tree Press top
ARTICLES & REPORTS
Times I’ve been the subject of or featured in articles or other reporting
March 8th 2023 – Daily Observer newspaper –
Daily Observer 2023 2 Daily Observer 2023 cover
March 5th 2023 – Observer Radio by Newsco. Big Issues –
March 2nd 2023 – Antigua Newsroom – “Joanne C. Hillhouse wins Anthony N. Sabga Award for Contribution to Arts“
March 1st 2023 – Antigua News – “Local Author receives Prestigious Awards“
January 3rd 2022 – Antigua Breaking News – “Joanne Hillhouse wins 3rd Place in the ReMLit Journalist Challenge”
December 22nd 2021 – Antigua Newsroom – “Joanne Hillhouse wins 3rd Place in the ReMLit Journalist Challenge”
December 13th 2021 – Karib Info – “Sainte-Lucie, Grenade et Antigua en tête du Défi Clean Oceans”
December 8th 2021 – The Voice – “St. Lucia, Grenada, Antigua command Top Spots in OECS Clean Oceans Journalists Challenge”
December 7th 2021 – OECS Communications Unit – “Saint Lucia, Grenada, Antigua command top spots in OECS Clean Oceans Journalists’ Challenge” – “Antiguan writer Joanne Hillhouse submitted a two-part multimedia series spotlighting marine culture. The submission spotlighted the common view that the ocean is a never-ending resource, which is consequently overeploited and under-managed.”
December 3rd 2021 – Daily Observer by Newsco.- “Antiguan Author Makes Top Three of Regional Journalism Competition”
February 19th 2021 – Daily Observer by Newsco. – “New Children’s Books by Local Authors hit the Shelves”
May 6th 2020 – Los Estómagos Vacíos de la Vaca – “Escritores negros de América: Escritores de Antigua y Barbuda”
April 23rd 2020 – Discover Montserrat – “Stuck at Home Reads for the Entire Family” – includes Lost! A Caribbean Sea Adventure – ” inspired by the story of an Arctic seal which found itself in the Caribbean seas a few years ago. The book pulls children into a fun adventure about kindness and friendship that will leave them with a greater appreciation of our marine environment.”
March 10th 2020 – Daily Observer by Newsco. – “Women WoW in Awards Ceremony” – read the Gender Affairs press release here on this site and read the 
WoW article in Observer
November 14th 2019 – Daily Observer by Newsco. – “Hillhouse at Sharjah International Book Fair in UAE” – 
November 7th 2019 – AZAD News Middle East – “SIBF 2019 panel reflects on current reading patterns in children by Azad Ali Tabassum” –
November 6th – 7th 2019 – sibf.com, UAENews 24/7, Sharjah24.ae – SIBF 2019 panel reflects on current reading patterns in children – ‘Concluding the session Joanne said, “As opposed to good and bad reading, I would say get them reading to what they connect with. Sometimes, in children’s fiction like The Hunger Games they like the character so much that they want to keep finding out what has happened to that character and at some point they will demand what they like and they’ll keep asking for more”.’
November 6th 2019 – Gulf News – Concern over reading patterns among young adults: Overriding influence of digital media discussed
November 5th – 6th 2019 – Daily Observer, Antigua Newsroom – “Antiguan Author invited to speak at International Book Fair in Sharjah” –
June 2018 – janishough.com – “Celebrating Ourselves through Written Word”
February 2018 – Lit Hub- “10 Female Caribbean Authors You Should Know And Add to Your American Lit Syllabus” by Gerty Dambury – “Joanne Hillhouse is a powerful writer, raising questions directly and with great energy.”
December 2017 – Trinidad Express – “A Fortune Lost!” – 
“Lost! is inspired by the story of Wadadli an arctic seal which found itself stranded in the Caribbean Sea far from its arctic home years ago.”
July 5th 2016 – American Scholar – “Leaving Home: Ten Books about Exile and Displacement” by Naomi Jackson – “Joanne Hillhouse’s Oh Gad! tells the story of Nikki Baltimore, who decides to leave a comfortable but unhappy life in New York City to reconnect with her family in Antigua after her mother’s death. She finds herself stepping onto landmines of old hurt as she tries to make a life among her maternal siblings in Antigua, which she knows from childhood summers there, but has never before called home.”
February 2016 – OMG Entertainment in Daily Observer (Antigua) – “Antiguan Writer makes Her Mark” – ‘“I still haven’t heard from the editor of O Magazine, though … lol,” she joked. “… The work continues.”’
Read it here.
April – June 2015 – Zing (the LIAT inflight magazine) – “Gripping Reads for Caribbean Youth” -“There’s a lot in it [Musical Youth] that they’ll be able to relate to in terms of the self-doubt we all go through, the ways we connect with others, and the ups and downs of family life. There’s the magic of music and new friendships and young love. I hope they see the power and beauty of embracing your passion, finding your voice and learning to believe in yourself, or at least what you can do when you find something you really love.”
April 2015 – Guyana Chronicle – “Preserving Our Literary Heritage”by Petamber Persaud – “Musical Youth by Joanne C. Hillhouse is a series of conversations on various subjects like racism, shadeism, relationships – man/woman, family, consequences of liaisons – sins of grand/parents falling on their descendants. It is also a love story of two gifted musicians who found their way through music while working on (a) summer musical. The story is fast-paced and engaging, a writer doing an excellent job with her tools of trade right down to a song titled ‘Melanin’ written by the two protagonists.” See the full article on page 3 or read it here.
February 2015 – La Association des Professeurs d’Anglais de la Guadeloupe website posted about a presentation one of its members (Karine Salcède) did on Oh Gad! Friday 20th February 2015 at la Mediathèque du Gosier -“Karine had met Joanne C. HillHouse at one of the latest Congrès des Ecrivains held in Guadeloupe and had liked her reading of passages from her own book. A fascinated Karine had then bought and read her book, and was very happy to share the content with APAG and ASCODELA reading club’s attendees.”
Read here: oh-gad-article2
December 2014 – TravelBag.co.uk – “If you are looking to dive into something fresh and modern, give the magnificent Joanne C Hillhouse a try – her short story ‘Amelia at Devil’s Bridge’ was featured in the Pepperpot: Best New Stories from the Caribbean anthology. She is also the author of Oh, Gad, a rousing novel about a woman facing cross cultural conflicts, and desperately to redefine her family, her home and the country that she has always felt estranged from. In some ways, Hillhouse is a natural successor to authors like Kincaid – Oh, Gad certainly shares certain narrative characteristics with The Autobiography of My Mother. For a fresh and contemporary read, give this young author a try on your next trip.”
November 2014 – ABS TV interview about Musical Youth and a CODE sponsored writing workshop I had been commissioned to organize and facilitate. Then they did this report. EXCERPT: “She’s part of this group of young people who are just in love with the arts.”
November 13th 2014 – The Caribbean Current – ‘“This [Musical Youth] is an important book,” comments a representative of the publisher, CaribbeanReads Publishing, “because Caribbean teens will be able to see themselves in the young people in the story and relate to it. There are few books that achieve this goal and that’s why we are so excited to be a part of this and of Joanne’s success.” CaribbeanReads is a boutique publishing company which provides affordable modern literature for children and young adults which engages the imagination and celebrates our heritage.’
November 2014 – Antigua Guardian – This profile coincided with the launch of my book Musical Youth; in fact, the picture used is from the launch and it’s a presentation of 15 copies of the book (sponsored by the Canadian non-profit CODE) to the Antigua and Barbuda Public Library.
EXCERPT: “Her part in youth development continues with Wadadli Pen. Ten years ago, as a young writer, Joanne launched the Pen, a project that encourages young writers through workshops and writing competitions. She said she really didn’t know what she was getting into, but it has turned out to be one of the most fulfilling experiences. ‘It’s hard to tell what the impact is,’ she said. ‘But I’m happy with the fact that I’m still here. People wrote and grew through it.’
July/August 2014 – Caribbean Beat Issue 128 – “Ready, Set, Read” – ‘Second-place winner Joanne Hillhouse had previously written an adult novel and a children’s book, and decided to take up “the creative challenge” of writing a young adult novel to submit for the Burt Award. The cash and prestige aren’t what she values most about the prize, she says. “I love to see people engaged in what I write. I’m looking forward to seeing how people respond to it. Especially young readers.”
The guarantee of publication and distribution, she says, “means there’s a greater chance of penetration across the Caribbean, and a greater chance of getting this book and the other books that have made it into the top three into the hands of young readers.”
“That is exciting to me,” Hillhouse says.’
April 2014 – 
Commonwealth Writers report on their panel at the Aye Write! Festival of which I was a part. EXCERPT: “Joanne emphasised that Pepperpot feels like the story of the modern Caribbean. She described how her story in the anthology, ‘Amelia at the Devil’s Bridge’, was inspired by real events and how she was curious as to ‘how we as a society were responding (to those events)’. Her writing comes from the things that trouble her.” (Image includes, from left, Gemma Robinson, Ivory Kelly, and Martin McIntyre)
November 2012 – Caribbean Beat (the Caribbean Airlines inflight magazine) covered the Wadadli Pen writing programme . EXCERPT: “A freelance writer by profession, Hillhouse found herself biting off more than she could chew when she first began Wadadli Pen, and had to put it on hiatus in 2007. ‘You have to be tracking down sponsors, going to schools, promoting it, running workshops — it’s very time consuming. It got tiring and I felt burned out, and I said I’d put it on break for a year, trying to figure out how to do it better.’ A year became three, but she succeeded in reorganising and getting more support by 2010. Now she looks forward to formalising its structure — Wadadli Pen isn’t yet registered as a not-for-profit and hasn’t got charitable status — and perhaps expanding to other countries in the Caribbean. She’s also thinking of expanding its publication programme.”
October 1st 2012 – 
Friends of Antigua Public Library newsletter hosted and reported on the New York launch of my book Oh Gad! In this clip, we (me and FOAPL president Beverly George) discuss visual and visceral language. EXCERPT: “From the time you’re describing the character coming off the plane. You know what you meet when you land in Antigua and you step off the plane, that hot air that comes up, and to have it described as an old relative just hugging you – ‘it’s okay, but’ – it’s so real.”
April 16th 2012 – August Rush newsletter announces the launch of Oh Gad!
2010 – Karibbean Expressions – 
2009 – Antigua Sun – “Local Author chats with Antigua Girls High School Students” – 
Full article: Antigua Sun on visit to AGHS
2008 – Friends of Antigua Public Library newsletter – “Friends Book Club Launches Meet the Author Series” – 
Read the entire issue: FOAPL newsletter report on Meet the Author
2004 – Island Where – “Antigua’s Joanne C. Hillhouse is a powerful, honest voice in the genre of West Indian fiction…There is integrity to Joanne’s work. Obvious is the ‘writer’s ear’ for effective characterization and narrative that stays true to Caribbean island experience.”
2004 – The Sunday Scoop – “Joanne Hillhouse is making a name for herself as one of Antigua’s finest young writers; her two novels The Boy from Willow Bend and Dancing Nude in the Moonlight have shown that she is a writer not afraid to hold a mirror up to her community and tell the stories.”
May 20th 2003 – Sun Weekend – “Joanne Hillhouse introduces a Boy from Willow Bend: Local Author produces Her First Novella with Macmillan” by La-Verne Jackson -“From Christ the King High School, Hillhouse went to the Antigua State College, which she said was the turning point where she got more involved with literature and playwriting.”
GUEST POSTS
Articles or blog posts written by me in someone else’s publication or on someone else’s platform
January 2021 – Shepherd.com – “The Best Teen/YA Caribbean Novels for Readers Everywhere” – “When I was a teen, there weren’t a lot of books from my world. So, I was excited when the Burt Award for teen/young adult Caribbean literature was announced. While that prize ran its course after five years, it left a library of great books in this genre, including my own Musical Youth which placed second in the inaugural year of the prize. I have since served as a judge of the Caribbean prize and mentor for the Africa-leg. I love that this series of books tap into different genres and styles in demonstrating the dynamism of modern Caribbean literature.”
November 2020 – the pbsblog.com – “Black History Fun Fact Friday – To Shoot Hard Labour” – “You can hear the heartbreak in his words as he reflects on the mahogany tree that once marked the slave market in town. “It was our government and black people that pluck up that tree.” (p. 161). It is we, now in charge, he insists who have forgotten and that’s the heartbreak of this book, but that’s also the hope. These stories are hard to read but they need to be told because – there is much that was done that we can learn from, there is much that was done to us that we must never forget.”
December 2019 – ApaNa magazine Issue #1 – p. 48 – 51 – “Finding my Cause through a Love of Reading and a Passion for Writing” –
October 5th 2018 – Women Writers, Women’s Books’ guest post “Are Children’s Books Real Books” – EXCERPT: “Part of the reason I wrote my first children’s story was so that I could have a story of my own to read when I attended events (‘children’s author’ Joanne C. Hillhouse had no age appropriate material) – it was a branding (or rather lack-of-branding) issue. Reading an early draft of that first children’s story to children (once during a school visit, once at the children’s reading club with which I volunteered) and editing it based on their reaction actually helped me get it to a pretty publishable place (children at that impulse st/age don’t know to be polite, they just react). So that when I saw a publisher call for material for new children’s books I had something to submit.”
June 22nd 2018 – Commonwealth Writers guest post “What is a Voiceprint?” on the Commonwealth sponsored writers’ workshop in Barbados – EXCERPT: “The workshop – from the chats over breakfast, to the in-session lectures and interactions under a gazebo just off the shore, and from the afternoon one-on-ones for critiques of our individual works, to our public reading and the dancing afterwards – was at once relaxing and invigorating. It was a daily engagement with a community of writers, and with ourselves as writers who typically work in a world potholed with obstacles, a world which at the same time provides the very air our writing breathes. The workshop was an opportunity for growth and at the same time an affirmation of our ongoing journey as writers.”
September 2017 – Anansesem Special Issue: Love – 5 Caribbean Children’s Authors on Helping Kids Choose Love Through Stories – EXCERPT: “Love wasn’t what was in my heart when I started writing With Grace. I was feeling beaten up by an encounter and confused as to why the encounter had gone sideways – even after reaching out to try to understand. It was this bad mojo and mixed-up-ness that had me picking up my pen because, so often, I’m trying to process and understand things when I write. Swirling in my mind, apart from the particulars of the situation, was the way it touched on issues of class and position…and what would become the central theme of the book, grace. In the book, a girl who has nothing approaches a woman who has an orchard of fruit trees for permission to pick something to eat; the woman directs her to the stingiest mango tree she has, expecting it to yield nothing. But she underestimates the girl and the persistence of hard work, music, and love.”
August 2017 – The Dream Book Blog – EXCERPT: “The Caribbean/West Indian books at my small local library were in a locked glass shelf, like the dishes no one was allowed to even look at in the wood and glass cabinets in many homes on the island. They were removed and untouchable. Except in school, where at least one was compulsory. I delight in the fact that my books are dog-eared and used, that some – so readers have confessed – have been tossed across the room in frustration at this or that character (specifically Nikki in Oh Gad! and Selena in Dancing Nude in the Moonlight).” – From the Dream Book Blog
July 2017 – Wandering Educators – EXCERPT: “And that’s the other thing – nothing is pre-destined for my main character and no one …will be riding to her rescue. She meets life challenges with determination and initiative, hard work and an open heart. Something to which the faerie responds.” Read the full post.
May 2016 – Bookends, Sunday Observer (Jamaica) – excerpt Musical Youth – Bookends May 2016
February 2016 – Essence – “Mirror Mirror” – “My favorite doll, the one I had the longest, was the duplicate of one my sister had, because we had everything the same back then. She was Black like us, with our thick hair, and thanks to mom stitching dresses for our ‘twins’ from the scraps of our clothes, they could have been our baby sisters. She was a big doll, not Barbie-size. I liked plaiting her hair almost as much as I hated having my own plaited.”
June 2015 – Hugo award winning author Mary Robinette Kowal’s My Favorite Bit series guest post on Musical Youth. EXCERPT: “Some of my favourite bits …spotlight the relationship between the boys, something we don’t see enough – the ways they ground and at the same time grind (mercilessly tease) each other. In the case of Shaka and his Lion Crew, they are a family of their own making and anyone developing a relationship with one is essentially developing a relationship with the whole group.”
February 2015 – Novel Spaces guest blog “Second Acts”. EXCERPT: “To say that this was one of the darker chapters in my journey as a writer would be an understatement. Years of knocking on that closed door certain that everything I wanted was on the other side of it; finally squeezing through only to discover that nothing really is ever as you dream it; adjusting the dream to the reality; and then that feeling that, that’s it you had your shot, the dream is dead.”
June 2014 – Zetta Brown’s She Writes Reality Check series guest post “Adventures in Editing”. EXCERPT: ‘When editing, Erykah Badu’s line at the start of the live performance of “Tyrone” always comes to mind: “Keep in mind that I’m an artiste, and I’m sensitive about my sh*t.” I understand this sentiment instinctively as a writer, but it’s useful to me as an editor as well; a reminder to take care.’
December 19th 2013 – Anansesem guest post “Adventures in Reading”. EXCERPT: “I realized as I listened to a group of children recite ‘Little Ms. Muffet’ during an Independence/Child Month programme this November that as much as I’d heard and said it in my life time, I’d never really known what curds and whey was. I mean, I knew it was food, after all Ms. Muffet was eating in the classic children’s rhyme; but as to exactly what the curds and whey she ate looked or tasted like, I had no idea. I’d never wondered.”
October 2013 – Bookbird: a Journal of International Children’s Literature Volume 51 Number 4 – “Wadadli Pen and Young Writers in the Caribbean” –
EXCERPT: “Fostering a sense of Caribbean-ness, and within that a sense of Antiguan-ness, has been a priority, meanwhile, for my pet project, the Wadadli Youth Pen Prize, since I started it in 2004.”
August 2013 – Blurb is a Verb. guest blog. EXCERPT: “Funny then that on the other side of the experience, the reader reaction should mean so much, but it does.”
March 2013 – Novel Spaces guest blog “Pieces of Self: Negotiating the Border Between Public and Private in a Social Media World”. EXCERPT: “The thing I still struggle to come to terms with is how much of your privacy you have to sacrifice to this process. You can’t just push your work, that turns people off, you’ve got to cut off bits and pieces of yourself and give them away as well. Part of me thinks that that hurts the creative process – apart from the time they take away from the writing, there’s the things that you give away casually that you might better use on the page, creatively.”
January 2013 – Guest blogging at Elaine Spires’ blog – Introducing Joanne C. Hillhouse
December 2012 – While promoting my book I was asked to do an article on Antiguan and Barbudan fiction, “The Essential Reading List” for Caribbean Hot Properties (find it on Page 78).
Then I did a similar list on Caribbean literature, “Caribbean Books You Should Know”, for the African American Literature Book Club. EXCERPT: “As a writer, I found the unorthodox narrative structure and inventive use of language particularly interesting; coupled with the loves and heartbreak of young Oscar, it made for compelling storytelling.”
June 14th 2012 – But What Are They Eating? guest blog “E Bang Good” EXCERPT: “These days I’m more inclined to write about cooking than actually cook. Writing is my gift in the way that cooking – and gardening – are my mother’s. We won’t delve into comparing the quality of the gifts, except to say that I never leave a spoonful of my mother’s thick slow cooked soup of greens and vegetables and meats in the bowl. Lord, e bang good!”
May 31st 2012 – She Writes featured blog entitled “Not the Same Old Carnival” EXCERPT: “In writing each scene, I drew on my feelings of playing Mas at Carnival, but I also tried to feel it in Nikki’s skin – her initial trepidation, and her subsequent seduction by the Carnival and fresh love. I hoped, through this approach ,to make Carnival for the reader viscerally joyful – and something more than a cliché. Of course, only my readers can decide if I succeeded.”
May 2012 – She Writes featured blog: Postings from Paramaribo series POSTINGS FROM PARAMARIBO 1-5 (about my participation in the Association of Caribbean Women Writers and Scholars conference in Suriname). EXCERPT: “I take a massive leap outside of my comfort zone everytime I speak before a crowd, big or small, but I’ve done it so often, for so long I’ve apparently fooled even my father, who knew me before I knew myself, into thinking that not only had I become comfortable with it, I actually liked it. Well, no and no, I told him.”
April 26th 2012 – Colorimetry hosted a Guest Post where I wrote about Oh Gad! from favourite scene to inspiration. EXCERPT: “Maybe I wanted to write about sisters, and mothers and daughters as I tried to figure out these relationships.”
April 16th 2012 – 365Antigua.com re Oh Gad! book launch
April 15th 2012 – Novel Spaces Guest Post: Love and Literature. EXCERPT: “Aeden didn’t start out as Aeden. But as I reconfigured his family history, I came across Aeden – Gaelic, meaning little fire or fiery spirit, and intuitively I knew it was his name. Writing him with this new moniker, he settled more comfortably into his skin, and one of the early readers who’d previously dismissed him, sat up and took notice. Who knew a name could make such a difference, not in a superficial way but to the way you write the character and the way readers engage with the character?”
April 12th 2012 – She Writes “No Free Launches”. EXCERPT: “Okay, so the reality check that I’ll add to this is that sometimes people indeed will not come through. Like my tanty used to say ‘leave room for disappointment’. Either way, you can still have a good time. My launch activity for Oh Gad! was held last night, and no not every one delivered as promised but most did and in the end it was festive and fun as I’d hoped. Supportive people, good atmosphere, my book’s coming out. Still smiling.”
April 12th 2012 – She Writes “It Pays to Give Back”. EXCERPT: ” I started Wadadli Pen because I wanted to create something that I didn’t have as a young wanna-be-writer, something that nurtures and showcases the talent. I wanted to encourage young writers.”
December 31st 2011 – Novel Spaces guest blog entitled “Got a Reading? Don’t Sweat it”. EXCERPT: “2. Distract Yourself/Be Present. Now, this sounds like a contradiction but it really isn’t. I try not to obsess about what I’m about to read. As I prepared for tonight’s reading, I ironed, watched music videos, surfed the web, tried to work (couldn’t settle down enough for that), tried on my outfit, took it off …all before leaving the hotel room.”
December 20th 2010 – Guest Post: “Writing off the Map” at The Signifyin Woman (Charmaine Valere). EXCERPT: “Well, here’s what no one tells you. Your job is not done. See, writers, all we really want to do is write; many of us are the shy, awkward people at the party, the people whose heart thunders like a runaway herd at each invitation to step to the mic, who would just as soon write, not speak. And yet, once we’ve written, speaking is inevitable and, as it turns out, necessary; because you’ve got to sell, sell, sell. If you don’t want to be dropped, dropped, dropped.”
December 15th 2010 – Geoffrey Philp’s BlogSpot hosted me for some reflections entitled “Defining Moments”. EXCERPT: “I know that I’m a writer because things never feel quite so hopeless, the world never feels so dull and absent of meaning as when I can’t write. Not even after the umpteenth rejection saying in not so many words, you’re not good enough. It’s not about finally finding the courage to cop to being a writer, to write it in my passport, to greet the world with it – even as they whisper with something like pity, she bright, you know, she coulda been a lawyer.”
August 2010 – “Wadadli Pen – Nurturing Another Generation of Antiguan and Barbudan Writers” on Summer Edward’s blog. EXCERPT: “When, earlier in 2010, I started the Wadadli Pen blog – intent on uploading the best of the best from the annual competition which dates back to 2004 – I had no idea it would consume so much of my time. Nor did I know that I would feel so energized by the process.”
June 2010 – “Wadadli Pen Scribbling Success Stories”. EXCERPT: “Maybe it’s the pure pleasure I experience reading the creative efforts of our young writers through the years; the way their storytelling prods at relevant social issues and reveals, in some instances, a literary maturity I didn’t necessarily have at their age.”
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INTERVIEWS
Author as interview subject
March 26th 2023 – Jamaica Observer’s Bookends #InConversation series – “Leaning in to Details: An Interview with Antigua’s Joanne Hillhouse” (Jacqueline Bishop)
One correction: On the second page where it says “where the lick”, it should say “were the lick” (from the Antiguan-Barbudan vernacular). Pointed out as the error changes the meaning of the sentence.
March 8th 2023 – ABS TV Good Morning Antigua Barbuda – “It actually started as a conversation between me and my nephew and his mother that became this sort of bedtime story.” (speaking of To be a Cheetah)
February 22nd 2022 – Wadadli Unplugged – “Winners of the OECS Clean Oceans Journalists Challenge give Insight into their Projects “
January 28th 2022 – Tim Tim Bwa Fik podcast Part 2 – “I am a Black Caribbean woman from Ottos, Antigua, and there are a million ways I can explore what that means…that grounds me, and then I can fly.”
January 7th 2022 – Tim Tim Bwa Fik podcast Part 1- “I got in to writing through reading and through the imagination and then, of course, when I hit my teens I found that writing was a good channel for all of the confusion and complications and contradictions of that transition from childhood to adulthood. Writing basically became that thing that helped me to channel life. So I began writing most prolifically in my teens and I haven’t stopped.”
November 24th 2021 – Coach Dorrette Harris’ newsletter –
September 29th 2021 – ZDK radio – “I especially cherish the reviews from readers because that tells me if the person the book is intended for is seeing and relating to it.”
September 2nd 2021 – UK author Madeline Dyer hosted a #BookChatParty on Twitter to discuss The Jungle Outside – read the full transcript here.
August 23rd 2021 – Diaspora Kids Lit – “When people write to me for advice, I do try to answer because I know when I was trying to figure out how to get on, I didn’t always get answers, because writers are busy. And, as busy as I am, sometimes it’s inconvenient, and that’s one of the reasons I tried to create the data base that I can direct people to. ‘Okay, I can’t give you a full comprehensive answer, but check this link.'”
August 17th 2021 – Badass Black Girl [The Vlog] Ep. 2 S.5 (with Haitian-American writer M. J. Fievre) –
“It drives us, right? It pushes us” (re that little nagging/imposter syndrome voice)
August 6th 2021 – ACalabash – “An Interview with Joanne Hillhouse: Processing Life through Writing” (Andy Caul) –
“AC: How do you decide which idea becomes a children’s book, a young adult novel or a novel for the general public?
JH: I’ll be honest with you: I’m still figuring that out. I think that the story finds its medium in a lot of ways. And some of it is beyond my control, although some of the choices are intentional, but when I’m writing, I’m not thinking “it’s going to be this genre or that sub-genre.” I’m just trying to get the story out. I’m trying to commune with the characters and hope that they will trust me to tell their stories. And then, as the story is taking shape, then I get a sense of what it is trying to become, whether it’s trying to be a short story (because I love writing short stories as well); a novel, and if I’m willing to make that commitment to the long form; or a children’s book.”
April 23rd 2021 – Caribbean Creative Collab – How We Did It (World Book Day Chat) – AntiguanWriter YouTube Channel
March 12th 2021 – interview re Wadadli Pen on ABS TV’s Antigua Barbuda Today
January 20th 2021 – National Public Library Author of the Month discussion –
November 16th 2020 – Catapult Creative Arts Showcase Grant activity – “Jhohadli on #theWritingLife – Your Writing Questions Answered”
July 18th 2020 – Instagram live discussion with Intersect, an Antigua and Barbuda gender activist group, about “Colourism in Musical Youth”
April 2020 –interview with Opal Palmer Adisa for Interviewing the Caribbean (Caribbean Childhood: Traumas and Triumphs Pt. 2) 
“I refer to myself on social media as a #gyalfromOttosAntigua, and that’s the core of who I am – a woman from the island’s urban, working-class community of Ottos, who has a passion for writing. I write about the things I’m trying to work through and understand, and the things I want to play with. I have always been a daydreamer, but I did not write anything until after Tanty died. She was my grandmother, and her death is the first real pain I remember.”
March 24th 2020 – interview with ABS TV’s Antigua Today about the Women of Wadadli Awards
March 2020 – (not an interview but answering questions as part of the Authortube Newbie tag on YouTube)
December 3rd 2019 – interview with Ravishly–
“With writing, the story is there sometimes in the accumulated experiences, observations, and questions of your life. I had been a guitar student like the main character, I had done musical theatre and musical stuff with my crew as a teen, I had had my experiences of coming of age and colorism; it was all there, waiting to be pulled.”
September 5th 2019 – interview on ABS TV’s morning programme Antigua Barbuda Today –
(click here and go to 35:30 to listen to the interview)
April 3rd 2019 – We are the Ones (on Pointe 99.1 FM, Antigua) – 
(click image to listen to the interview)
January 12th 2019 – #CharacterSpotlight at Emma the Little Bookworm – “On the page, well I let them go when I finished writing them, but I imagine they’re out there still dancing and trying to match each others’ rhythm.” Read more.
October 25th 2018 – Linda’s Book Bag blog – “This Insomniac anniversary edition is the original story and some extras including honest to God fan fiction. It may have undersold, may still be underselling but several people have told me it’s their favourite thing I’ve written. I mean who doesn’t love a good love story, right?” Read More.
June 2018 – Caribbean Literary Heritage – “Who are our most important writers today?
Oy ve! I don’t like value judgments like “most important”. A Writer like Edwidge Dandicat is hugely important to me, as is Antigua and Barbuda’s biggest literary export Jamaica Kincaid, someone else will say Marlon James, someone else will say Kei Miller, or Monique Roffey or Tiphanie Yanique, all writers I’ve enjoyed, all award winning writers with huge platforms doing interesting and compelling things on the page. But there are so many writers in the gaps, writing their niche in a way that potentially opens it up to other eyes; and for me that’s one of the more interesting things is that there is no single voice, no single point of view, no single voice of importance; rather so many voices – at home and abroad, from islands big and small, of different subsets – clamouring to be heard and important in their way. If only more of them, more of us, could be amplified.” Read more.
February 17th 2018 – The Hippo Hangs Out…with Joanne C. Hillhouse – “If you could spend time with a character from your book who would it be and why? What would you get up to?
The teens in Musical Youth are a fun, interesting bunch. Sitting in on one of their rehearsals while they prep their Anansi themed summer theatre production, watching their squabbles and their creative blossoming and frustrations and triumphs, I imagine that would be fun.” Read more.
January 8th 2018 – English Harbour Radio – 
December 2017 – Interviewed by the Feathered Quill – “FQ: You write poetry as well as fiction/non-fiction books. Do you find one style more satisfying for you to work with, or do they all offer something important, and perhaps different?
HILLHOUSE: “I am most passionate about fiction, reading it, writing it. But I enjoy experimenting so I’ve tried my hand at many genres and sub-genres: screen and play writing to fiction and poetry and, of course, non-fiction, with journalism and feature writing being a part of that; and from bildungsroman to romance to adult dramas to noir to jumbie (ghost) stories and so on, including as demonstrated by With Grace, my Caribbean fairytale published by Little Bell Caribbean, and Lost! A Caribbean Sea Adventure, children’s picture books.” Read my full interview with the Feathered Quill
December 5th 2017 – ABS TV –
December 1st 2017 – Lost! A Caribbean Sea Adventure author, illustrator (Danielle Boodoo-Fortuné), and publisher in conversation as part of a live Lost! event, subsequently archived on Wadadli Pen – “Danielle Boodoo-Fortuné ‘…Dolphin’s daydreaminess really helps define him, I think. It was the first thing that struck me when I started doing concept sketches of each of the characters. It set him apart from his friends…. aside from his nose of course. In the illustrations, I wanted his eyes to always be wide and filled with wonder.'”
November 23rd 2017 – Interview re Astrid Lindgren nomination and writing career on Observer AM
July 2017 – African Book Addict –
“Some of my favourite Caribbean books of fiction would be:
The Farming of Bones by Edwidge Danticat
Lucy by Jamaica Kincaid
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz
The Lonely Londoners by Sam Sevlon
Fear of Stones by Kei Miller…” Read the rest of the list and the rest of this interview here .
July 2017 –
The Culture Trip – “I think like any writer anywhere, I struggle to be seen, to be heard, to be read, to get on. Like any writer anywhere, I have to do my research and find an angle, and hope that I am not limited by my location either, in getting my foot in the door or in how my work is marketed and/or received. Finding and tapping into opportunities, making a living as a writer—both as an author and as a freelancer—is challenging, especially so if you’re located in a small place. Because I am so far off the map as far as publishing is concerned, the struggle has been greater, but so has my determination.” Read the full interview.
January 2017 – Sometimes interviews don’t run. Like this one. Done with Hamlet Hub in 2015, posted for the first time on this blog in 2017. – “… I suppose, since this is an American blog and I am a Caribbean writer, I could ask something like why would a reader from America be interested in books by a writer from Antigua. My answer, it’s an imaginative road trip to a different culture, and the realization at the end of it that wherever they rest their heads at night, people are, after all, just people. My characters for all their differences from your reality are still people – and I’ve found as a reader and writer that even within the differences it’s often possible to find something relatable. The best writing, in my view, doesn’t pander to that idea but lets its characters live and breathe, and the open reader can really have an enriching experience stepping into that other-world as it is and just breathing it in. If you’re anything like me, you’ll like the adventure of exploring a different world for a while, all without leaving home; though travel is fun too.” Read the full interview.
January 2017 – Interviewing the Caribbean 2016 – A History of Violence Part 1: The Making of Caribbean Society published my poems “The Bamboo Raft” and “Election Season”, and my short story “Zombie Island”. 
Editor Opal Palmer Adisa also interviewed me for the issue. EXCERPT: “I like to try my hand at things I’ve never written before. That’s how I ended up trying my hand at noir (for Akashic’s Mondays are Murder series), and the teen/young adult genre that resulted in my book, Musical Youth, a Burt Award finalist, or the faerie tale, With Grace… So, it (the writing of “Zombie Island”) was that impulse to try something I hadn’t done, to experiment. It was also the reality of violence – everything that happened in that story including a raging man banging down my door happened in life, though none of it, as is always the case with fiction, happened as it happens in life. My irritation with the politics is there as well so it must have been political season when I wrote it. But mostly it was me wanting to see if I could tell a zombie tale at all, and then more specifically a zombie tale in a Caribbean space.” Publication here. Read the full interview.
January 2017 – Good Morning, Anrigua Barbuda programme – ABS TV – 
December 2016 – Little Bell Caribbean is a sub-set of Editorial Campana which published my second children’s book and sixth book overall, the picture book and Caribbean fairytale With Grace. Publisher Mario Picayo conducted this in-house interview to coincide with the launch of the book. EXCERPT: “Writing is how I engage with the world, and while it is not just emotional impulse, it can be an emotional release. Such was the case With Grace. I was blindsided by a negative encounter… and it was taking up entirely too much mental space. While the circumstances in the story are fictional, With Grace came out of my desire to purge those feelings. I’m really happy that a character so full of grace emerged, like sunshine chasing out the negativity.” Read the full interview.
July 2016 (think this originally ran in 2014 but 2016 is the date on the site) – Grab Life by the Lapels – the Interview EXCERPT: “I’m very driven…and it’s not about what tier I’m on because I’m still very much a writer on the hustle… it’s about feeling like I heard the character right and told her or his story right; that’s what matters to me, and I’ll fight for that.”
November 2015 – Swedish TV programme Popreel interviewed me on a wide range of subjects and used excerpts focussed on language as culture and identity, and how it emerges in my literature. 
EXCERPT: “I’m always writing something… for me writing is a journey of discovery. I can’t always see where it’s going but I’m always wandering my way through it, and trying to figure out what it’s all about.” Watch the story (my interview begins about 9 minutes in). There’s also a radio link EXCERPT: “I grew up on calypso… calypso was where you went to get the news and to tell it to you straight; and I think that’s something that’s at the back of my mind or has influenced me as a writer. When I was growing up I didn’t know any writers from here, from Antigua, the writers from here that I knew, and I have great respect for them, were the calypso writers, people like Shelly Tobitt and Marcus Christopher. Because when I was growing up calypso was the literature that I would hear that had some relevance to my community.” The interviews are used in the schools in Sweden as well; this is the Teacher’s Guide related to those interviews.
November 2015 – The Real 268 Woman is a light-hearted interview series in Caribbean Times EXCERPT: “That’s an excerpt from my poem Ah Write, previously published in The Caribbean Writer and the PEN America journals…and in it I come as close as it’s possible for me to come on what inspires and influences and informs my creativity… and it is everything… the ugliness and the beauty…and sunsets…just life.”
September 2015 – 
– Popreel Season 2 – audio only excerpts also ran on Bookworm (Sweden) – “Irish Rap, Australian Street Art, and Antiguan Literature“. EXCERPT: “I started writing earnestly in my teens and I was in my 20s before I realized, you know what, I’m going to figure out a way to do this. And it was right after I finished university. I did a writing programme at the University of Miami. I went to university at the University of the West Indies in Jamaica, and then I was recommended to the Caribbean Fiction Writers Summer Institute at the University of Miami and that’s when I started working on The Boy from Willow Bend.”
August 2015 – Interview with Geosi Gyasi at Geosi Reads: a World of Literary Pieces. EXCERPT: “My earliest memories are of the willow tree lined dead end alley I used as the setting for my first book The Boy from Willow Bend.”
July 2015 – ABS TV’s Anderson Edghill interviewed me on my book Musical Youth. EXCERPT: “I do think that these are important themes in the lives of our young people; and I can speak to being a teenager myself and trying to figure out who I am, what I want, and…those few years are some of the most confusing and, also, some of the most revelatory, in terms of, you’re discovering yourself but you’re pushed and pulled by your peer group.”
June 2015 –
Dr. Jessie Voigts at Wandering Educators reviewed my book Musical Youth (“I’m so very impressed, and extremely happy to share this book with our Wandering Educators.” -Dr.Voigts). She also interviewed me about what inspired it and other things, including whether or not a sequel is planned. EXCERPTS: “Fragments of me and some of my experiences helped shaped this book, from my teen days playing guitar and navigating the kinds of relationships Zahara and Shaka do in the story to my work trying to motivate young people to recognize the power of their own voice through projects like the Wadadli Youth Pen Prize, the things that inspired this book are timeless, true for any girl and boy coming of age, anywhere, any time – in fact a niece of mine IM’d me to insist, insist, not ask that it was about her, which for me is a great compliment because it means that she sees herself in it; I told her everything she saw was also me, once upon a teen-age, which is true, and yet not…because the truth is there is no single inspiration …it’s also true that these kids – Zahara, Shaka, Kong, and the rest had very definite ideas about who they were from the jump and were insistent that I tell their story as they lived it…I listened…and just tried to keep up.”
June 2015 – The Hamlet Hub interviewed me about a number of things including favourite books. EXCERPT: “In school in Antigua, probably To Shoot Hard Labour, which is non-fiction, effectively the post-slavery to post-colonial history of Antigua through the lived experience of Samuel ‘Papa Sammy’ Smith, an Antiguan workingman – a life that spanned 1877 to 1982, by the way. I read it in high school for the first time and it brought the British-Caribbean history I’d been learning all those years – as dates without context, without connection, without the voice or perspective of my ancestors – to life in vivid and unsettling detail. It was suddenly more than words on a page; it was a story of how I came to be here. And I think that’s important, when so much of what you read, even the history that claims to be about you, doesn’t include you.”
February 2015 – With interviewer, Cuthbert, on Good Morning Antigua and Barbuda Teen Edition –
November 2014 – The Whimsical Project (Haitan-American writer M.J. Fievre) had a wide ranging interview with me. EXCERPT: “Beyond that, it was normal – friendships and family, church and Carnival, mangoes and butterflies… (Butterflies always come to mind when I think of my second childhood home, much like willow trees, the willow trees in my first book The Boy from Willow Bend, when I think of my first childhood home…) the days we spent chasing butterflies in the hedges across the street from my grandparent’s home, something I referenced, though re-located, in Willow Bend… in it, I referenced, too, perhaps my most vivid memory, my grandmother, Tanty’s, dying… my first heartbreak and the thing that quite possibly set me on the path to becoming a writer.”
October 2014 – Booker Talk’s The View from Here travels the world through books, with a local as a guide; this is the Caribbean Chapter as written by me. EXCERPT: “Jamaica Kincaid is a favourite writer of mine. In fact, discovering her book Annie John years ago was one of those steps on my journey to accepting that it wasn’t so crazy to want to be a writer. Because when you come from a small place, it seems the most impractical thing.”
June 2014 – The Emerge interview was a series spotlighting women on the hustle (the business hustle, the money hustle) who still claimed the right to do so on their terms (independently). It was a project of NIA Comms founder Marcella Andre. EXCERPT: “I refer to myself as freelancer deliberately … for a number of reasons…but mostly because it has the word free in it.”
June 2014 – Jamaica Observer’s Bookends interviewed (via Bookends editor and author Sharon Leach) me about Musical Youth and the kinds of things I write, in addition to running an excerpt from the book. EXCERPT: “I write sort of all over the map, drawn in by the questions that trouble me and the characters that intrigue me, and sometimes the desire to experiment with form, and hopefully emerging on the other side with a good story.”
April 2014 – Repeating Islands picks up my interview with Commonwealth Writers(the original British Council link is broken but the content has been re-published here on the blog): EXCERPT: “In your opinion, what are the biggest challenges that writers face today? ‘The challenges are as they’ve always been: time, money, space, more time, access, opportunity; though perhaps a little more so if you’re a black woman writer from a small island in the Caribbean sea…the biggest challenge then, in the face of insurmountable odds – including a rapidly transforming publishing landscape – is not losing hope, holding on to that thing some might call persistence and others might call obstinacy.'”
March 2014 – Cynthia Nelson’s food blog Tastes Like Home interviewed me about food culture, mine and Antigua and Barbuda’s. EXCERPT: “I don’t think I have an eating style but I do identify certain foods with certain days – like salt fish is for Sunday morning, rice pudding (black pudding made with blood and rice) is for Saturdays, and Fungee and other local foods are never eaten on Sundays. Good Friday is Macaroni for me because I don’t eat Ducana (a steamed sweet dumpling made of grated sweet potatoes, coconut, raisins, spices, and flour). Ducana and salt fish is a Good Friday tradition in Antigua.”
March 2013 – Susumba’s Tanya Batson-Savage (a Jamaican writer and publisher) interviewed me after the release of Oh Gad! in a piece entitled “Shooting for Happiness – Joanne C. Hillhouse talks writing and more” including the path to publication and goals. EXCERPT: “Once I felt I had a manuscript worth selling, I did research online mostly trying to find somewhere to sell it. I tried to find publishers and/or agents who were open to taking risks on new writers, who represented any of the niches I might fit into – female, black etc. … The hardest kind of pitch I remember having to do was an oral pitch – how to verbalize what makes your story different or something the market needs. Networking also helped; and networking isn’t just about hitting up other writers but building relationships and putting yourself in situations where your writing can grow.”
February 2013 – The Frugal Feminista interviewed me about the business of being an artist and about my book Oh Gad! EXCERPT: “I didn’t write with the children’s market in mind at all; I just told the story and because the first novella was a coming of age story, it was a natural fit for that market. But what it taught me is that sometimes you get pigeonholed by what you’ve done or how what you’ve done is defined by others and not by the full scope of what you can do and do do.”
October 29th 2012 – Sandra Sealey (Barbadian writer) interviewed me at Shewrites.com on my makings as a writer. EXCERPT: “In terms of the creative arts, specifically I’ve said before that I believe that calypso was an early influence because the calypsonians were the popular singer-songwriter-folk singers giving voice to the lives and frustrations and hopes and dreams of the people; for many of us they were our inauguration into the craftiness and power of storytelling. Also with other homegrown arts like the steel band, the Carnival mas, and jumbie and Anansi stories, the toys we crafted of necessity from our environment, the way our parents sewed the scraps of life together, it all created in me a latent awareness of the creativity of my people; our ability to cut and contrive.”
September 10th 2012 – Kelcey Parker is the author of For Sale by Owner and owner of the site ph.d in creative writing and other stories. She interviewed me for her ‘how to become a writer’ series. EXCERPT: “Jamaica Kincaid because like me she’s an Antiguan writer and because after reading Annie John, I knew that I had a lot of work to do but becoming a writer wasn’t as improbable as it seemed. Edwidge Dandicat whose writing I admired and whose geographic landscape (she was also from the Caribbean and only a few years older than me) made me see possibilities. Zora Neale Hurston because I like both her writing and her spirit and, like her, I’m committed to rendering my world in its full-bodied authentic self.” Read it here.
July 2012 – Excerpts of an interview from the New York launch of Oh Gad!
May 2012 – Your Style interview: “Joanne C. Hillhouse frees her mind” (Page 17) EXCERPT: “But with the good comes the bad and the thing you’re never really prepared for when you step out and say I want to be a writer is that feeling of vulnerability, because your work will be judged and may be found wanting…”
April 24th 2012 – Interviewed on the Colin Sampson TV show – video unavailable but here’s a video capture: 
April 17th 2012 – Commonwealth Writers – “Why did you kill Uncle Wellie?” EXCERPT: “My writing is always rooted in my Antiguan-ness; and in particular the Antiguan (with a hint of Dominican) working-class reality from the 1970s to present; the rhythms of that world especially informed my first book The Boy from Willow Bend (2009). But it’s there in some way, shape or form in the other stories as well – even the ones not set in Ottos, where I was born: people making do and making a way, people who had their eyes wide open to reality but were still superstitious, people dealing with the disorientation of change within the shadow of larger political and social factors, much like in my new book Oh Gad! (2014).”
April 11th 2012 – Caribbean Book Blog interview shortly ahead of the release of Oh Gad!, touching on issues related to the book itself. EXCERPT: “I hope they find it to be an engaging read; interesting, thought provoking and entertaining. As always, I hope Caribbean people see a bit of themselves and I hope non-Caribbean readers see some of our common humanity. Beyond that I can’t really control what they take from it as part of what we take from works of art has to do with what we bring to them. Each person will take something different.”
January 6th 2012 – Blogger Mindy Hardwick’s interview with me focused on mentorship. EXCERPT: “Also, when someone whose opinion you respect sees you and believes in your potential – and in the potential of your work – you believe in it a little bit more as well.”
December 4th 2011 – Trinidad poet Danielle Boodoo Fortune interviewed me for a student project about the things that inform my writing. EXCERPT: “So, I guess I’m both inspired by what’s happening around me and also use my writing to slip away from it.” Read the interview.
March 21st 2010 – Caribbean Literary Salon interview – CLS Interview – EXCERPT:
Q-With so many writing accomplishments under your belt already, what other goals do you have for the future? Perhaps another book?
I hope I keep writing and keep loving it. I hope to keep publishing – my stories, poems, non-fiction – in more and more places, reaching more readers. I hope to find a publisher for my new book – my agent is currently shopping it and my fingers are crossed. I hope to expand the readership of The Boy from Willow Bend, which I worked to get back into print with Hansib after parting ways with the original publisher, so, of course, I hope to keep it in print and in the schools; and to get Dancing Nude in the Moonlight into a second printing as well. I hope to someday produce my screenplays – yes, I’ve written a couple including one for The Boy from Willow Bend and short calypso driven one I’m really passionate about. I hope to become so good at the hustle that I never have to resume the 9 to 5 grind. I hope to find time to read all the unread books on my book shelf and to sit on my porch and watch the sunset. So, yeah, I’m hoping for literary success and some of that balance you mentioned earlier.
2010 – Interview with a group of local students touching on personal and writing related issues. EXCERPT: “Fiction…challenges me and I fall in love with the characters and enjoy discovering the story. Poetry…it’s my outlet; it’s not always about publishing, often it’s just about getting it out. This is the medium I use for that type of writing more than any other…for me, the most accessible, I guess. Though it is it’s own kind of challenge (technically). But I like all forms for different reasons.”
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SHOUT-OUTS/MENTIONS
In media, where I am not featured nor the main focus of the story; or I am but it is a press release reprint
March 2023 – E-News-Jan-Feb
March 11th 2023 –
Repeating Islands & Velvet Classic & Belle Jamaica – “Joanne C. Hillhouse wins the Sabga Award for Caribbean Excellence”
March 2nd 2023 – Guyana Chronicle – “Guyana Rice Researcher to get Prestigious Regional Science Award“
March 2nd 2023 – Trinidad Guardian – “Trini doctor among 2023 Anthony N. Sabga Laureates“
March 1st 2023 – CNC3 News Trinidad and Tobago – “Trini Doctor among 2023 Anthony N. Sabga Laureates“
March 1st 2023 – Publishers’ Weekly – “The On-Sale Calendar: July 2023 Children’s Books“
November 8th 2022 – “Six Young Authors launch Book, prepare for tour in Canada” (p. 11-12) in Antigua and Barbuda’s Daily Observer – “Eventually we had physical workshops with the legendary Joanne Hillhouse [who] was very instrumental in developmental writing and correcting.”
July 6th 2022 – Here We Read For Fun blog – “100 Caribbean Books That Made Me” – “31. Musical Youth by Joanne C. Hillhouse | Antigua”
June 14th 2022 – “The Caribbean Voice” by Akilah at After Five – “local titles like All Over Again or The Beast of Kukuyo by Kevin Jared Hosein, a book set in Trinidad, felt utterly unlike the books for younger readers from the ‘Global North’ markets. I reached for Musical Youth by Antiguan writer Joanne C. Hillhouse, published by Caribbean Reads in St. Kitts and reached the same conclusion: they were similar in ways that made them distinct from their overseas counterparts.”
May 25th 2022 – Antigua Nice – “Rule No. 3 wins Romance Campaign” – ‘The writers will receive free access to the Jhohadli Writing Project Workshop Series in June hosted by acclaimed Antiguan author Joanne Hillhouse. Hillhouse whose published work includes: The Jungle Outside, Musical Youth, Lost, The Boy from Willow Bend, and Dancing Nude in the Moonlight has partnered with the ABTA to offer both runners-up the opportunity to expand their craft through her year-long writing series. “I appreciate the opportunity given to writers in Antigua and Barbuda and the privilege of reading the entries. I would like to congratulate the winner Kimolisa Mings’ whose entry Rule No. 3 winningly frames love as the most daring adventure within a very tight and well-shaped rom-com, rich with pilot tension, character depth, and chemistry, and a real sense of place”, said the consulting judge for the contest, Joanne Hillhouse.’
January 5th 2022 – Birthday shout out and feature on The Spectator – “Her most impressive contribution to the continued development of the literary arts outside her own publications, is the Wadadli Youth Pen Prize founded in 2004. Hillhouse and the associated workshops for young writers, with the aim of nurturing and showcasing the literary arts in Antigua and Barbuda. This project has provided the foundation for the growth and development of many published authors and remains a significant contributor to the development of the national literary arts.”
October 31st 2021 – Funtimes – “Stories from 4 Antiguan and Barbudan Authors to read on Antigua and Barbuda Independence Day” – “Joanne C. Hillhouse’s short story “Little Prissy Palmer” tells of the intersections of class, ideals of success, literacy, the outcast and an unlikely friendship between the main character, a schoolgirl named Prissy, and a pack of dogs.”
July 16th 2021 – featured on #2TIMBF Caribbean romance books community – 
April 25th 2021 – Diane Browne blogspot ‘Bocas Lit Fest and Your Next YA Novel’
“And this, without apology, brings me back to the Burt Caribbean Award. 2014 was the inaugural Award. My book Island Princess in Brooklyn was shortlisted. The winners were Inner City Girl by Colleen Smith-Dennis; Musical Youth by Joanne Hillhouse; and All Over Again by A-dZika Gegele. They deserved to be winners; I enjoyed them, but here, in the essence of space and time, I can only mention some of the things that engaged me. I was literally on the edge of my bed with parts of Inner City Girl, saying, ‘don’t let him (predator in her ‘family’) back you into the house, girl.’ I loved the knowledge of music that the youth had in Musical Youth, showing that young people can have interests other than what we might expect, while still being ‘normal’ youth. With All Over Again, nobody writes comedy like A-dZika!”
April 15th 2021 – Kirkus Reviews‘ “Celebrating the Spark and Spirit of Indie Books”
“Musical Youth. Joanne C. Hillhouse’s YA novel, set in Antigua, is a well-observed charmer”
February 2021 – Read the Caribbean Antigua and Barbuda tag
January 3rd 2021 – RWL Blog + Reviews – Winners of the Caribbean Readers’ Awards 2020
December 2020 – Antigua Newsroom published and tweeted news of Musical Youth making Kirkus Reviews‘ list of top 100 indies – 
December 17th 2020 – The Daily Observer shares news that “Antiguan and Barbudan YA book named one of Kirkus Reviews Best Indie Books of 2020” (and a sample of responses to Observer’s share of the article on facebook) – 
December 16th 2020 – South Florida Caribbean News shares news that “Antiguan and Barbudan YA Book named one of Kirkus Reviews Best Indie Books of 2020”
December 16th 2020 – Discover Montserrat shares news that “Joanne C. Hillhouse’s Musical Youth Named One of Kirkus Reviews Best Indie Books of 2020” – 
August 20th 2020 – Writer Blog Gwyneth Harold Davidson – “Four Novels of Summer”
July 20th 2020 – The Anguillan – “The Anguilla Literary Foundation (ALF) Celebrated July 12th as Caribbean Literature Day” (A retrospective of their literary festival) – “In 2015, we featured one of Antigua’s young and up-coming literary artistes, Joanne Hillhouse whose novel, The Boy from Willow Bend, is a part of the Anguillian Education Department’s reading list for First Formers.”
July 18th 2020 – Writer Blog on the USVI two-day webinar to launch the 34th edition of The Caribbean Writer and hold the space for the USVI literary festival – I was mentioned as a participant.
July 2020 – on Intersect’s instagram page –
July 13th 2020 – Daily Observer –
July 9th 2020 – “Black Authors You Should Read” by Gabino Iglesias
June 5th 2020 – Amina’s Bookshelf – Caribbean Authors
April 18th 2020 – Sweetfootjourneys.com – mentioned in the Antigua and Barbuda page in its Dauntless Countries section for work in literary arts
March 9th 2020 – 268Today.com – GCA Shines for Third Year in RCA’s Book Reading Competition – “The ‘Boy from Willow Bend written by local author, Joanne C. Hillhouse, was this year’s featured book.”
March 2020 – Rotary Club of Antigua’s write-up on the 2020 Reading Competition – “For the 3rd year in a row, a student from the Grace Christian Academy has emerged as the winner of the Rotary Club of Antigua’s Book Reading Competition. Amaya King edged out 13 competitors in the keenly contested event, which took place at the Methodist Church Hall on Saturday. Her composure and delivery captured the judges’ attention in all of the segments of the competition which took place in three parts. The Boy from Willow Bend, written by local author, Joanne Hillhouse, was this year’s featured book.”
February 24th 2020 – Karukerament – The Sweetest Mango Episode 7.2 – (translation from French) “1:40 – 2:46: my neutral vision of Antigua and Barbuda when I lived in Guadeloupe until I read Musical Youth by Joanne C. Hillhouse, my literary crush of 2019.”
2020 – So Many Books, So Little Time – 2020 Reading Women Challenge
December 20th 2019 – Guardian (Belize) – editing services mentioned in Writing with a Purpose in Belize
October 20th 2019 – in Gulf News article – “Over 60 Luminaries to Topline Sharjah Book Fair” – “Bernice L. McFadden is the author of 10 critically acclaimed novels including the award-winning ‘The Book of Harlan’. H.M. Naqvi is the award-winning author of ‘Home Boy’ and ‘The Selected Works of Abdullah the Cossack’. Editor and author Joanne C. Hillhouse has been listed on LitHub and has published six books. Internationally acclaimed award-winning educator, Stephen Ritz is the author of the best-selling book, ‘The Power of a Plant’, and the founder of Green Bronx Machine. Kathleen Antrim is an award-winning author, host and commentator.” Picked up in The Indian News.
August 26th 2019 – Brown Bookshelf article re the launch of Anansesem’s Caribbean children’s/teen/young adult online book store mentioned the work I do with Wadadli Pen in acknowledging it as a resource
August 2019 – Repeating Islands shared the announcement re the second edition of Musical Youth
July – August 2019 – 
June 2019 – Shouted by Bahamian writer Alexia Tolas and Barbadian writer Shakirah Bourne as they discuss winning the regional (i.e. Caribbean) prize in the Commonwealth short story competition and landing an agent, respectively.
2018 – Listed as part of the For Women Collective w/ biography – the collective formed informally with the publication of For Women: in Tribute to Nina Simone which included creative pieces from the various writers. & Listed on the CODE web page – CODE is the sponsor of the Burt Award of which Musical Youth was an inaugural finalist.
December 2018 – “Can you ever return home? What does ‘home’ mean? These are the questions asked in this story of a woman at cross-cultural odds with herself.” – Vintage Caribbean lists Oh Gad! as one of the “Caribbean Books that should be on Your Gift List This Christmas” It also shouts out as “fresh and inventive” Pepperpot: Best New Stories from the Caribbean, which includes my story “Amelia at Devil’s Bridge”. & Booktuber Giselle Mills mentions Musical Youth in her Caribbean Book Haul video.
November 2018 – Check out the poem “The Poetry Salon in Old San Juan” and not just because I merited a shout out. & Jamaican-American author Geoffrey Philp shares a bit of his online real estate to announce ‘New Book:¡Perdida! Una Aventura En El Mar Caribe’ & Blog Jamaica and Repeating Islands picked up the announcement re Lost! A Caribbean Sea Adventure‘s Spanish edition
October 2018 – Two of my poems (“Ghosts Lament” and “Children’s Melee“) have been interpreted in this post as anti-imperialist and translated alongside work by other Antiguan and Barbudan poets including lyrics from Short Shirt songs lifted from the Wadadli Pen song lyrics data base in what seems to be a translation series as Poésie anti-impérialiste d’Antigua-et-Barbuda
September 5th 2018 – Musical Youth mentioned on a list entitled “25 Great Reads for Kids” in Zing magazine.
August 2018 –
in Taste of the Caribbean & Jerk Festival.
February 19th 2018 – Antigua Nice shares the Literary Hub article “10 Female Caribbean Authors You Should Know”. Read the post here.
February 5th 2018 – “…as an appreciation of the passionate writing of Joanne Hillhouse; always challenging her readers’ subconscious, and reigniting the memories of the Antiguan-ness of our upbringing.” – Zorol Barthley, Inside the Edge, Daily Observer
December 2017 – Lost! A Caribbean Sea Adventure named one of AALBC’s “6 Children’s Books of Interest to Readers of Black Literature Published in the Last two Months” (AALBC also did a book announcement)
Tropicale Fete Inc. announces Lost! A Caribbean Sea Adventure
One Caribbean announces Lost! A Caribbean Sea Adventure
Antigua Nice announces Lost! A Caribbean Sea Adventure
November 2017 –
Discover Montserrat announces Lost! A Caribbean Sea Adventure
Repeating Islands announces Lost! A Caribbean Sea Adventure
Antigua Chronicle announces Lost! A Caribbean Sea Adventure
Caribbean News Service announces Lost! A Caribbean Sea Adventure
Caribbean Edition announces Lost! A Caribbean Sea Adventure
June 2017 –
With Grace mentioned in the May/June issue of the LIAT in-flight magazine.
With Grace among books selected for the VI Governor’s summer read challenge as mentioned in this post to the St. Thomas Source.
March 2017 – Carolyn Cooper’s “Derek Walcott’s Loose Tongue” in the Jamaica Gleaner which ends with a roll call of writers who have studied at the University of the West Indies.
January 2017 –
AALBC which also maintains an author page for me on site, shared book announcement (With Grace).
Repeating islands shared book announcement (With Grace).
Unheard Words shared book announcement (With Grace)
Writers and Authors shared book announcement (With Grace)
Caribbean Entertainment Magazine does author announcement related to With Grace
July 2016 – Naomi Jackson, an American author with Caribbean roots (in Barbados and Antigua) is the author of the critically-acclaimed Star Side of Bird Hill. She listed, in American Scholar, 10 books about exile and displacement; a list that included Grace Jones’ I’ll Never Write My Memoirs, Sherman Alexie’s National Book Award Winning The Absolutely True Story of a Part Time Indian, A Thread of Sky by Deanna Fei, Jeannette Winterson’s Oranges are not the Only Fruit, Man Booker Winner A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James, Anna-in-Between by Elizabeth Nunez, Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, and two Antiguan picks – Jamaica Kincaid’s Lucy and my book Oh Gad! Read the full article.
June 2016 – Anansesem shared book announcement (With Grace).
January 2016 – Thoughts of a Mini-Bus Traveller blog on a reading at Moray House in Guyana in which I participated.
November 2016 – ITZ Caribbean shared book announcement (With Grace).
September 2015 – Art. Culture. Antigua on my participation in Brooklyn Book Festival & The Daily Observer also ran this image from my panel with (from left) Ian Maloney, Matthew McGevna, and Tanwi Nandini Islam: 
June 2015 – Essence magazine said this at its online site after the Anguilla Lit Fest: “Writers from other Caribbean nations, such as novelist Joanne C. Hillhouse of Antigua, also played a part in the discussions, drawing on the vastness of voices from the African diaspora. In a side conversation, Hillhouse emphasized the significance of having role models to help nurture one’s writing spirit. Jamaica Kincaid, also from Antigua, provided that for Hillhouse—showing her the possibilities for a Black Caribbean woman in the literary world. Drawing ironically on this principle, Hillhouse was surprised to learn from one of the student participants that her book The Boy from Willow Bend, about an Antiguan boy finding his way through life, is required reading in some Anguillian schools.”
February 2015 – Jules Tools for Social Change: a Black History Month Booklist included In the Black: New African Canadian Literature which includes my story “Man of Her Dreams”.
2014 – David Rae Stories – Recommendations: Links to Other Authors I have enjoyed. Dancing Nude in the Moonlight 10th Anniversary Edition and Other Writings.
December 2014 – Digging through the Fat shared my story “Something Wicked” (published in the Missing Slate) and my poem “Children Melee” (published in Moko)
December 2014 – Caribbean & Co.’s “6 Books to Add to Your Children’s Library This Christmas” included mentions of Musical Youth and Round My Christmas Tree, the latter a collection that includes my short story “Breaking with Tradition”.
November 2014 –
Daily Observer shared book announcement (Musical Youth)
NGC Bocas Lit Fest website shared book announcement (Musical Youth).
August 2014 – NPR’s Weekend Reads programme hosted author Elizabeth Nunez for a discussion of my book Oh Gad! (Here’s THE FULL TRANSCRIPT) EXCERPT: ‘But Hillhouse still lives in the landscape she writes about. “There’s such an authenticity to her story,” Nunez says. “I immediately knew the people, the characters she wrote about.”‘
May 2014 – Bookends editor Sharon Leach covered PEN World Voices festival in the Jamaica Observer.
EXCERPT: “I was singularly thrilled to be asked to be part of this year’s festival, which included two other writers from the Caribbean region, Barbara Jenkins of Trinidad and Tobago and Joanne Hillhouse of Antigua. We were accommodated at hipster-chic hotel, the Marlton, smack-dab in the Village, and the experience was delightful. Authors can be some of the most negatively competitive people you’ll ever meet, and so, it didn’t have to play out that way. You know I keep it real, so believe me when I tell you: the time spent bonding with these ladies was amazing and I left feeling not only more a part of the contemporary Caribbean woman writers’ sorority, but more importantly, that I’d made two friends for life.” Read here: Bookends May 2014
April – May 2014 – Several news and arts outlets -including the Arc, Global Voices , Trinidad Express x2, Susumba and others – reported on the outcome of the inaugural Burt Award, in which my manuscript, Musical Youth, placed second.
March 2014 –
Trinidad and Tobago’s Daily Express announced the Burt Award short list which I was on. Also announced on the Caribbean Book Blog and in the Jamaica Observer.
October 11th 2012 – The African American Literary Book Club [AALBC], a website dedicated to books and films by and about people of African descent, included me in their Authors You Should Know series 
.
August 2012 – Appearance at Nature Island Literary Festival covered in a Daily Observer article picked up by Repeating Islands
July – September 2012 – Zing (the LIAT inflight magazine) shares book announcement (Oh Gad!):
July 2012 –
The Dominican shared announcement re participation in the Nature Island Literary Festival.
Carib Daily shared announcement re participation in the Nature Island Literary Festival.
Repeating Islands shared announcement re participation in the Nature Island Literary Festival.
April 2012 –
Geoffrey Philp’s BlogSpot shared launch announcement (Oh Gad!).
Tastes like Home shared launch announcement (Oh Gad!).
Wealth of Ideas shared launch announcement (Oh Gad!).
Caribbeanemagazine shared launch announcement (Oh Gad!)
365antigua.com shared launch announcement (Oh Gad!)
Vision (UK) shared launch announcement (Oh Gad!):
Trip Antigua – social media announcement – 
March 2012 –
Caribbean Book Blog shared launch announcement (Oh Gad!).
Daily Observer shared launch announcement (Oh Gad!):
Repeating Islands shared launch announcement (Oh Gad!).
January 20th 2012 – Publisher’s Weekly included Oh Gad! in its Romance Listings.
December 2011 – Signifying Guyana excerpted forthcoming book Oh Gad!
November 1st 2011 – Soca Mom blog listed The Boy from Willow Bend on its list of recommended Caribbean Children’s books.
September 18th 2011 – The Boy from Willow Bend mentioned in Boy’s Reading at the Beyond the Marog Kingdom blog – 
March 8th 2011 – Geoffrey Philp’s blog – 
April 10th 2010 – the Antigua Sun Online – B-Hive launches book of the month club by Theresa Gordon – “First up is Antigua’s own, The Boy from the willow Bend by renowned author Joanne Hillhouse, which was re-issued just last year.”
2010 – “I also think that we can broaden our appreciation not only for the well-known authors, but also for authors such as Kellie Magnus, Joanne C. Hillhouse, and Joanne Gail Johnson” – Geoffrey Philp in Jamaicans.com
January-March 2010 –
Zing, the LIAT Inflight magazine: 
26th October 2009 – quoted in Nicholas Laughlin article Caribbean: Rethinking Online Publishing – Global Voices – 
31st July 2009 – Caribarena Antigua & Barbuda – book re-release announcement –
2009 – Caribbean Daily News – book re-release announcement – 
2009 – 365antigua.com – 
2008 – Antigua and Barbuda Island Guide by Christopher Beale -“Hillhouse’s work gives a descriptive and poignant look at the Antiguan culture.”
2005 – New West Indian Guide Vol. 79 no. 1 & 2 – “Bookshelf 2004” by Richard Price and Sally Price nwig-article-p92_6 – p. 92 – “The Macmillan Caribbean Writers series…has produced several winners…Dancing Nude in the Moonlight is Antiguan novelist Joanne C. Hillhouse’s exploration of the lives of immigrants from the Dominican Republic in Antigua.”
Other –
mentioned on (pictured) Zing (LIAT’s inglight’s recs lists), the Peepal Tree Press, Search Antigua, Caribbean Congress of Writers, Adda, IMDB
XTRAS
Everything else
2022 (October) – “The New [Caribbean] Daughters of Africa: A Review focused on Caribbean Women’s Voices in New Daughters of Africa” – presented at the Antigua and Barbuda Conference:
2021 (November) – CCNY’s Langston Hughes Festival Honors Jamaica Kincaid
2021 (October) – “About a Girl: a Close Read of Jamaica Kincaid’s ‘Girl’, its stylistic devices and & aesthetic intersection with literature in the Antiguan and Barbudan oral (specifically calypso) literary tradition” – (to be published in the Antigua and Barbuda Review of Books 2022; delivered at the Antigua and Barbuda Conference November 2021)
2021 (July 30) – Tonya Liburd mentions and quotes article on the Wadadli Pen blog in an article entitled ‘Dialog, Patois: If It’s Good Enough For Anthony Burgess, It’s Good Enough For You’
2020 – Kingston Creative w/link to my Catapult AMA
2020 –
2020 – as of March 2020, I have a wikipedia entry
2019 – Global Secondary Books: STUDENT MATERIALS: Novels, poetry, fiction, non-fiction, folklore (on the New Jersey City University website) compiled by Sheila Kirven 
2019 – Commonwealth Foundation report – Stronger Civic Voices Across the Commonwealth Stronger-civic-voices-across-the-Commonwealth (1)
August 2019 – Summer read recommendations in Jamaica Observer:
January 2019 – reading poems “Development” and “Summer 1” on Angles of Light radio programme on Chapel FM in Leeds, UK
December 2018 – vlogger/reviewer includes Musicial Youth in her book haul
November 2017 – Announced as a nominee for the 2018 Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award See her review here
September 2017 – The Rumpus Letter for Kids is a series of individual letters from authors to children in America – Joanne’s Rumpus Letter for Kids – is about the right way to eat a mango
Summer 2017 – Little Bell Caribbean’s post re the 2017 Governor’s Summer Reading Challenge Kicks off on St. Thomas at Lockhart Elementary
April 2015 – Caribbean Reads, publisher of Musical Youth, had some good news involving the book in its newsletter: 
December 2014 – Burt Award sponsor CODE’s post on Musical Youth being Donated to the Public Library of Antigua and Barbuda (disseminated by CODE) EXCERPT: “It means a lot to me to have my new book, Musical Youth, in the stacks of the long awaited, brand new library,” said Hillhouse, who added that a library is an essential and potentially vibrant part of not only the literary community but the community as a whole. “I love that Antiguan and Barbudan teens are going to have ready access to this book and I hope that they will be able to see themselves in it.”
November 2014 –Truly Caribbean reports on the release of Musical Youth – also covered by the Daily Observer, and Repeating Islands. EXCERPT: “This is an important book,” comments a representative of the publisher, CaribbeanReads Publishing, “because Caribbean teens will be able to see themselves in the young people in the story and relate to it. There are few books that achieve this goal and that’s why we are so excited to be a part of this and of Joanne’s success.”
2013 – My full transcript of conference paper from the 3rd Congress of Caribbean Writers in Guadeloupe (theme: There is no Spoon: the Thin Line between Memory and Invention) – EXCERPT: “The dungeon is fashioned from a small cave in a rock, it has a single opening, the remains suggesting it was bolted by a heavy door. When we visited for the report and put a barrier across that opening, we found that inside is complete darkness and hard stone, and could imagine the little critters creeping through the crevices. I was able to use that experience and the oral history from the interview – when tanty tells Nikki that they were told as children not to play there and why, for instance.”
2012 – My full transcript of conference paper from the Association of Caribbean Women Writers and Scholars in Suriname (theme: “Beyond our Borders: The Caribbean Writer in the Digital Age: A Perspective”) – EXCERPT: “funding is important but even more than that is action and that lack of action”.
2012 – ABS TV teamed up with me for a televised book club discussion of my book Oh Gad! We discussed favourite characters, story motivation, story themes, elevator pitch, and more including what label me and my stories wear. EXCERPT: “….the idea is that if the emotion is real, if the humanity is real, if it’s coming from an authentic place then people will be able to connect with it…”
2012 – Callaloo Journal shared videos from participant readings from the Callaloo Writers Workshop held at Brown University in Rhode Island during the summer. I was one of two from my group; I read from Oh Gad!
2012 – 
2007 – Commonwealth Foundation report – Stronger Civic Voices Across the Commonwealth – 
Other – e.g. 2022 – The Jungle Outside illustrator leads art exercise for children –
2011 edition of the USVI literary journal The Caribbean Writer (Volume 24) –
, quote lifted from this creative non-fiction story and posted to the Caribbean Civilization tumblr – 
, Oh Gad! launch post taking the top spot on the Shewrites.com platform –
, this 2011 Antigua and Barbuda Public Library display – 
, the use of poem She Rocks Locks in a 2010 photo-art video display She Rox Lox byZIA Photography – 
, this 2008 Best of Books Press Release ‘Moonlight Street Fair to Showcase Winners of Chapter Contest’ (Moonlight press release from Best of Books), Joanne C. Hillhouse’s IMDB listing
Finally, have you checked out my books? – they’re available online and at bookstores near you (if they’re not already, ask and they can be). Here’s a link to the books and their publishers (re ordering).
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