Literature – Fiction
Camille Wanliss is a New York City-based writer of Caribbean descent. Much of her writing explores the impact of familial estrangement and inherited trauma through the lens of Afro-Caribbean identity. Camille aims to create complex yet accurate portrayals of Caribbean identity while challenging the boundaries of Western culture. She is a 2022 Periplus Fellow and her work has appeared in Plantin Mag, Raising Mothers, Anomaly, and Kweli Journal, among others.
At the Anderson Center, Camille worked on revising AN ORNAMENT AND A DISGRACE, her manuscript for a historical novel set in 1962 Jamaica about land and legacy. The work is rooted in an Afro-Caribbean tradition that decenters standard English in favor of Jamaican patois – a hybrid dialect comprised of British English and West African influences. On August 20, 2022, Camille offered a drop-in historical fiction writing workshop. Participants read a brief excerpt of her work, discussed ways to develop historical fiction in an era of their own choosing, and created work based on this prompt.