Antiguan writer Joanne C. Hillhouse’s new book - Oh Gad! available April 17th

Joanne C. Hillhouse’s writing has been described as “honest”, “real”, “poetic”, and “lyrical”.Her Antiguan culture is at the heart of her writing: “Obvious is the ‘writer’s ear’ for effective characterization and narrative that stays true to Caribbean island experience” (Island Where, St. Lucia)

Joanne has written three books of fiction – The Boy from Willow Bend, which found its way onto the Antigua and Barbuda schools reading list; Dancing Nude in the Moonlight, for which a Moonlight Street Festival was organized in 2008; and now Oh Gad!

A University of the West Indies graduate, she has participated in the Caribbean Fiction Writers
Summer Institute (University of Miami) and the Breadloaf Writers Conference (Middlebury College,
Vermont), the latter as an international fellowship recipient. Other awards include a UNESCO Honour
Award and the David Hough Literary Prize. JCI West Indies in 2011 recognized her as one of Ten
Outstanding Young Persons in the region for her humanitarian work in Antigua and Barbuda. This
includes her involvement in writing and reading programmes like the Wadadli Youth Pen Prize1 - which she founded in 2004.

She’s participated in showcases in the Caribbean, Canada, and America; and has published poetry, fiction, and non-fiction in local, regional and international publications. Her freelance reporting and feature writing has attracted awards (locally) for health and environmental coverage. She’s worked in television and film – including as associate producer of Antigua’s first feature length film, The Sweetest Mango, and production manager on its second, No Seed. She’s consulted on local and regional campaigns, with corporations, individuals and non profits, in addition to her participation in literary projects like book and anthology editing.

Writing and reading have remained her twin passions, however: “I was influenced to write by my desire to tell stories, to impact readers in the way that my favourite stories impacted me…I’m just a sucker for a good story.”

ABOUT OH GAD!

A stirring novel about a woman facing cross-cultural odds and redefining everything she understands about her family, herself, and the country she’s never really been able to call home.

Nikki Baltimore was born in Antigua but grew up with her dad in the United States. With each year she’s grown further apart from her mother and maternal siblings, potters in rural Antigua.

Her mother’s funeral brings Nikki back to the island, and, at a professional and personal crossroads, she makes the impulsive decision to stay after being offered a job by the ruling government. Soon, Nikki is embroiled in a hurricane of an existence which includes a political hot potato, confusion in her romantic life, and deepening involvement in the lives of the family she left behind.

Will Nikki eventually find her place in the chaos and begin to plant the roots or continue to blow in the wind?