‘Love Where You Live!’ A Conversation with Diana McCaulay

Abstract

Diana McCaulay is an award-winning Jamaican novelist and short-story writer. Her first novel, Dog-Heart (Peepal Tree Press, 2010) won a Gold Medal in the Jamaica Cultural Development Commission's National Creative Writing Awards (2008), and was shortlisted for the Guyana Prize (2011), the IMPAC Dublin Award (2012) and the Saroyan Prize for International Writing (2012). She won the Regional Prize for the Caribbean Commonwealth Short Story competition in 2012 for ‘The Dolphin Catcher’. Her second novel, Huracan (Peepal Tree Press, 2014) was also shortlisted for Saroyan Prize for International Writing. In April 2014, she won the Hollick Arvon Caribbean Writers Prize for a non-fiction work in progress, entitled Loving Jamaica: A Memoir of Place and (Not) Belonging. At the same time she is working on her third novel, which at the time of this interview was tentatively called The Dolphin Catcher. McCaulay is the also founder and Chief Executive Officer of the Jamaica Environment Trust (JET), focusing on environmental education and advocacy. Before that she worked in the general insurance industry for eighteen years, in various senior management positions. She is a Chartered Insurer qualified by the Chartered Insurance Institute in the United Kingdom. She holds a Bachelor of Science Degree in Management Studies from the University of the West Indies, and a Master's Degree in Public Administration from the University of Washington, with majors in environmental policy and international development. She served on the Board of Jamaica’s Natural Resources Conservation Authority from 2003 to 2005, and again in 2008, and is a past Chair of the National Environmental Societies Trust and past Vice Chair of the Environmental Foundation of Jamaica. This interview took place in Kingston, Jamaica, June 2015 and was conducted by Russell McDougall. Questions prepared in advance and interspersed contextual notes added after the transcription were prepared in collaboration with Sue Thomas.