Patricia Glinton-Meicholas

P. O. Box  CB 13151
Nassau, Bahamas
Telephone: (242) 393-3221
e-mail: pattigm@bahamas.net.bs

An Evening in Guanima
A treasury of Bahamian Folktales		 How to be a True-True Bahamian More Talkin' Bahamian
The 99 Cent Breakfast Imperial Life Financial Bahamas
The 20th Century
Talkin' Bahamian
No longer in print
Completely covered in More Talkin' Bahamian		 From the Void to the Wonderful
A History of the Roman Catholic Church in The Bahamas
Robin's Song
A book of children's poetry		 No Vacancy in Paradise
A book of poetry		 A Shift in the Light
A Novel

Birthplace

Port Howe, Cat Island, Bahamas


Work Experience

March 2002 -
Acting Council Secretary, The College of The Bahamas

August 2000 - March 2002
Freelance writer/editor

1990 - July 2000
Sr. Vice President, editor-in-chief, senior writer and top speechwriter at The Counsellors 1990 until July 2000.

1978 - 1990
Garnered almost twelve years' experience as an educator at the College of The Bahamas: Chairperson of the Humanities Division for several years, Acting Academic Dean for a year, and later Special Academic Assistant to the Principal. Lecturer in French and Spanish. Credited with being one of two pioneers of the College's Reading Laboratory. Also spearheaded the development of the College's present Foreign Language/Journalism/Reading Laboratories Complex.

Other
Eighteen months with the Ministry of Education. A year's stint as a teaching assistant in France.

Education
Bachelor's Degree in French and Spanish (Hons.) from the University of the West Indies. Master's Degree from the University of Miami in the teaching of Reading and the Supervision of Reading Programmes.

Awards
Became the first person to be awarded the Ministry of Tourism's Cacique Award for Writing (1995).
Awarded a Silver Jubilee of Independence Medal for Literature (1998).

Accomplishments
Great passions are the history and culture of The Bahamas.


Publications

Books:

Bahamian Art 1492-1992 (with Huggins and Smith) (Finco: 1992)
An Evening in Guanima (original short stories based on Bahamian folktales and lore) (Guanima: 1993)
Talkin' Bahamian (dialect dictionary) (Guanima: 1994)
How to be a True-True Bahamian (satirical essays & anecdotes) (Guanima: 1994)
More Talkin' Bahamian (dialect dictionary) (1995)
From the Void to the Wonderful: A History of the Roman Catholic Church in The Bahamas (Guanima).
Flight of the Spirit: A Portrait of Bahamian Artist Antonius Roberts (editor).
The 99-Cent Breakfast, a satire on Bahamian society (Guanima: 1999)
History of Imperial Life - The 20th Century (Guanima: 1999)
Robin's Song, collection of poems (Guanima: 2002)
No Vacancy in Paradise, collection of poems (Guanima: 2002)
A Shift in the Light, a novel  (Guanima: 2002)

Short story "The Gaulin Wife" was published in the Penguin anthology Under the Storyteller's Spell (London, 1988).
Wrote the Bahamas entries on Fine Arts and Collecting which appears in the 37-volume Dictionary of Art (Macmillan, 1997) and in Macmillan's Latin American and Caribbean Art (1999).

Monograph "Talkin' Ol Story: A Brief Survey of the Oral Tradition of the Bahamas" in Encuentros, July 2000, No. 38 (Publication of the InterAmerican Development Bank, Washington, DC)

Has written and presented several academic papers on issues in Bahamian culture and history, numerous news releases and articles in newspapers and magazines on various aspects of The Bahamas, with a focus on Bahamian art and folklore. Was curator for the Stan Burnside, Jackson Burnside and John Beadle exhibition at the Biennial of Art of Sao Paulo, Brazil and wrote feature on "Jammings", a genre of painting developed by, which appears in the huge exhibition catalogue and on the Internet.

In the late 1980s, collaborated with Rhonda Chipman Johnson and Christina Nwosa to produce two textbooks for the College of The Bahamas Distance Education course in Spanish.


Video Documentaries

Pioneer in the field of Bahamian video documentaries. Researched, wrote and directed several:

For the Ministry of Agriculture:
Agriculture Today: Food Processing (30 min)

For Bahamas National Trust:
Nassau's Historic Mile (30 min) (1993)
Historic Nassau Over the Hill (30 min) (1994)
Historic Family Islands: Exuma, Cat Island, Long Island (30 min) (1995)
Historic Family Islands: Eleuthera, Harbour Island & Spanish Wells (30 min) (1996)
Historic Family Islands: The Abacos (30 min) (1997)

For the Central Bank of The Bahamas:
Balcony House (c. 1996) (15 mins)

For the Roman Catholic Diocese (Bahamas):
- Tell Every Generation, A History of the Catholic Church in the Bahamas - Part 1 (60 min) (1995)
- Tell Every Generation - A History of the Catholic Church in the Bahamas - Part 2 (30 min) (1996)

For the Maternal & Child Health Unit, Ministry of Health:
- Adolescent Healthy Life Styles - You've Got Choices (30 min.) (1995)

(The historic videos have been shown on the Cable Community Channel)


Crisis Management
- Have been principal writer in the resolution of a number of volatile crises in industry, including the Imperial Life mortgage crises in the early 1990s.

Continued Involvement in Education

- Continued involvement with education through school visits, lectures, workshops for teachers and various other activities.

- Conducted a workshop in the teaching of poetry for the Ministry of Education for about 80 teachers.

- Was a member of the Ministry's Career Path Steering Committee and later, the Assessment team for two years.

- Designed a weeklong Teacher Certification in Tourism Workshop and ran it for the Ministry of Tourism. Designed the substantial lesson modules, delivered the primary lectures in each unit and wrote the script for an accompanying student video (1999).

- Led the Marketing Sub-Committee of the College of The Bahamas Strategic Planning Committee, and wrote the final report.



Research

- Actively involved in a movement to research and promote the culture of The Bahamas

- Founding president of the Bahamas Association for Cultural Studies which hosted the First Conference on Bahamian Culture under the theme "Uncovering Bahamian Selves", June 3-5, 1998 and the second conference "Going Away, Going Home: the Influence of Migration on Bahamian Culture", June 4-6, 1999. Presented at both conferences. Co-editor of the BACUS journal Yinna, the first volume of which appeared in July 2000.


Major Presentations at Conferences and Forums

- Presented at the lecture series organized by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Nassau in honour of the Silver Jubilee of Independence of The Bahamas in 1998.

- Featured luncheon speaker and a delegate at the First International Conference on Caribbean Literature held in Nassau (Nov. 1998). Presented, in the latter capacity, a formal paper entitled "Oral Literature: Speaking for the Silent Voices".

- Presented at the Conferences of the Bahamas Association for Cultural Studies:
1998: "Uncovering" - Opening Address
1999: 1. " The Ol' Story Heritage Map"
2. " Migrations" - Opening Address

Presented at Forum 2003 (organized by The College of The Bahamas and Bahamas
Association for Cultural Studies) – June 30-July 4, 2003:
- “Of Junkanoo, Conch Salad and the Yankee Dollar: Reflections on the Politics of Cultural Development and Its Impact on Identity Formation and National Development in an Independent Bahamas” Others

Presented paper entitled "A Vision for the 21st Century Library: A Library User's Perspective" at ACURIL 2000 Conference in Nassau, Bahamas.

Presented a lecture in the annual lecture series of the Cultural Centre of the Inter-American Development Bank in Washington, D.C.: "Talkin' Ol' Story: A Brief Survey of the Oral Tradition of The Bahamas" (published in the IDB journal Encuentros) (2000).


Consultancies

Team leader for the Consultancy in the Historic and Cultural Patrimony of The Bahamas for the Inter-American Development Bank (1997-1998). Personally conducted the field and documentary research and produced a comprehensive report
of 190 pages.

Recently completed another consultancy with IDB--a proposal for the development
of an art centre for emerging artists.

Between late 2000 and early 2001, carried out extensive research and writing to construct a large database (600 typewritten pages) the website of Imperial Life Financial.


Current Projects

Volumes II and III of BACUS' Yinna in press.


Community Work

Current
Member of two statutory bodies:
Antiquities, Monuments and Museums Corporation Board
National Cultural Commission
Member of the Cable Cares Foundation Committee, which is a community project of Cable Bahamas Ltd.

Previous
- Was a member of the statutory National Art Gallery Committee from its inception until November of 2000.

- Have done volunteer work with the Bahamas Reef Environment Educational Foundation (marketing)



Statement

All my life, my relationship with words has been a passionate and undying romance; I love to learn of their etymologies and connotations, and my constant goal is to tease them into images and sentences that create lithesome and memorable pictures and songs.