PATRICIA GLINTON-MEICHOLAS, GUANIMA PRESS LTD AND ITS SPONSORS GIFT MORE THAN 500 COPIES OF LUSCA AND OTHER FANTASTIC TALES TO THE STUDENTS OF AQUINAS COLLEGE

Presentation by Neko Meicholas
Guanima Press Ltd
to the Students of Aquinas College
Loyolla Hall
Gladstone Road, Nassau, Bahamas
November 15, 2017

With this book we have preserved a part of our Bahamian heritage that was being lost.

With my wife Patti’s words and my illustration and electronic graphics skills we have locked... in ink and paper... a small part of our rich and colourful folklore.

This book represents our hope for the positive reform of our people and our country.

I hope with all my heart that each and everyone of you will realize the importance of this gift and make an effort to read it.

Patti wrote this book for you.

The Guanima Press Books for Students project was born because we despaired at the BGCSE results we were seeing written about in the newspapers. 

We believe that young Bahamians no longer read as much or as widely as they need, and this is contributing to academic underachievement.

We wanted to do something to help by encouraging the reading of good books.

We wanted you to know the importance of reading. 

We wanted you to know how important it is to spend your whole life reading, learning, gathering information and knowledge from books and other sources.

We wanted to encourage you to use that information to craft yourself into the best version of you.

We wanted you to know that you are brilliant.

We wanted to give you this book that was created about Bahamian lore… for Bahamians…by Bahamians.

We knew our small publishing company Guanima Press Ltd could not afford to do this alone, so we went into the community and asked for support—support that was readily given by wonderful and generous people.

We thank our wonderful sponsors.

We especially thank a very special woman—Barbara Thompson.

We thank Orry J. Sands, Earla Bethel of Danbrad Ltd, The Charitable Arts Foundation, The Cable Bahamas Cares Foundation, Sir Franklyn and Lady Wilson, Dawn Davies and those sponsors who have chosen to remain anonymous.

My dream of gifting thousands of Patti’s new book Lusca and Other Fantastic Tales to Bahamian students has become a reality because of our efforts and the support of this stellar group of people.

Today we are giving every single one of you, all 500 plus of you here a copy of this book for FREE.

Please read LUSCA and Other Fantastic Tales.

Read lots of other books… Bahamian books, books from other countries.

Please just read copiously and experience the magic it will create in your school performance and your life.

Patricia Glinton-Meicholas Marks the Launch of Her New Book, Lusca and Other Fantastic Tales by Gifting 600 Copies to the Students of the Government High School

(L to r) Linda Fisher, librarian, The Government High School; Earla Bethel of DanBrad Ltd, first sponsor to the Guanima Press Ltd book-giveaway project and Patricia Glinton-Meicholas, author, Lusca and Other Fantastic Tales.

In support of a book-giveaway project launched by Guanima Press Ltd, Patricia Glinton-Meicholas marked the publication of her new collection of original short stories, Lusca and Other Fantastic Tales, by gifting 600 copies to the students of her alma mater—The Government High School.

Glinton-Meicholas (right) is shown with (l to r) Linda Fisher, librarian at the Government High School and Earla Bethel of DanBrad Ltd. Also a graduate of The Government High School, Bethel was the first sponsor of the Guanima Press project, which aims to put copies of the book into the hands of thousands of young Bahamians to encourage them to read more.

The project has also received the support of B.T., Orry J. Sands, The Charitable Arts Foundation, The Cable Bahamas Cares Foundation, Sir Franklyn and Lady Wilson, Dawn Davies and others.

“For some time now, I have had a deep concern for the widespread underperformance in educational achievement, when I know that Bahamians are brilliant. I believe that low achievement in reading and the spurning of reading widely contribute significantly to the problem. Guanima Press has always given away lots of books, but with the launch of Patricia’s new book, I decided to do it in a really big way, giving away thousands of books in the hope that it would encourage more reading” said Neko Meicholas, owner of Guanima Press Ltd, which published the new work.

Recognized nationally and internationally for her writing ability and cultural knowledge, Patricia Glinton-Meicholas has created, in Lusca and Other Fantastic Tales, yet another means of preserving several of the unique, legendary, but mostly forgotten creatures of Bahamian folklore including Lusca, the Hag, and Chickcharnie. With her fertile imagination at play, she has also created a number of otherworldly characters, who demonstrate powers that are sure to have readers looking over their shoulders at unusual sounds.

Lusca and Other Fantastic Tales continues what Patricia’s first book An Evening in Guanima started, the preservation of a wonderful aspect of our Bahamian heritage—its rich folklore.

I am never satisfied…

I wonder if it is the curse of many artists to never be satisfied with anything you have done? I will draw and redraw and redraw and am still hardly ever satisfied with the end product.

And…

Why does it always seem to take forever to get anything completed when you are working with deadlines.

I have been working on the illustrations for LUSCA and Other Fantastic Tales for a very very very long time. Partly because I lacked the discipline and the focus to simply sit down and complete the task and then as crunch time approached I was redrawing everything because this fin did not look right or I needed more tentacle to show. As usual I have scrapped more drawings than actually ended up in the new book.

It puts a lot of pressure on you when you are trying to preserve the creatures of Bahamian folklore. It is no longer just about creating a drawing. It becomes a mission to preserve as accurately as possible a part of your heritage that is rapidly disappearing… Here’s to hoping that I have succeeded, in some small way, in saving a small bit of our heritage for generations to come.

ABOUT LUSCA
LUSCA is a creature from Bahamian folklore. Out of the depths of the sea, it has the head of a shark and the body of an octopus. In Patricia Glinton-Meicholas' story she is given the role of a protector/avenger. And although you are not supposed to play favourites LUSCA is one of mine…

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