Kwame McPherson: 2023 Commonwealth Short story winner, book and life mentor

A famous author once said “A good story is a dream shared by the author and the reader. Anything that wakes the reader from the dream is a mortal sin.” This quoteperfectly encapsulates the passion and pursuits of Kwame McPherson, a man who lives and breathes the art of storytelling. A ghostwriter, content creator, editor, proofreader and book mentor strategist, McPherson has been fortunate to be able to share his work with the world through poetry, short stories and novels for over two decades and most recently he was awarded the 2023 Commonwealth Short Story Prize for the Caribbean region.

A 2007 Poetic Soul winner with many other awards received over the years for his body of work, McPherson is a successful contributor to Flame Tree Publishing’s (UK) diverse-writing anthologies. His recent achievement is just one in a long list of awards and recognition for his outstanding talent in telling tales that evoke a plethora of emotions in his readers. This latest award holds much significance as McPherson topped thousands to claim the literary crown as over 6,600 submissions were received from which twenty-eight outstanding stories were shortlisted by an international judging panel for one of the world’s most prestigious global literature prizes.

The Commonwealth Short Story Prize is awarded annually for the best piece of unpublished short fiction from any of the Commonwealth’s 56 member states. It is the most accessible and possibly the most recognised of all the international writing competitions and in addition to English, entries can be submitted in Bengali, Chinese, Creole, French, Greek, Malay, Portuguese, Samoan, Swahili, Tamil and Turkish. Such linguistic diversity in a competition highlights its goal of inclusivity as seen in 2023 where 475 entries were submitted in languages other than English. Writers from some nineteen nations across the Commonwealth addressed a myriad of issues concerning everything from human tracking to human nature, family illness and everything in between In the end, five writers stood on top of the literary pile for the region with two coming from Jamaica with McPherson emerging as the winner.

As his work is diverse as it is dynamic, he does not pigeonhole himself to any one theme or genre. “I love history, especially world history and modern contemporary issues. I write on all genres from sci-fi to romance to western, so I don’t limit myself as I love to challenge myself as a writer.” Writing in itself for him is not challenging in the least as it comes effortlessly which is why he paves the way forward by facilitating others who may need a little assistance to unearth their own literary talent. This is where his book mentorship and coaching skills come into play. “As a mentor, I do several tasks depending on where the individual is along their writing journey. Some people write but do not know how to get their work out there while others may not be as skilled in terms of patience or direction to sit down and get their thoughts down in a cohesive manner, so I help them through all of this so that in the end what is produced makes sense. And for some, I help them to further flesh out their concept or their story and also sit with some who just have an idea but don’t have the discipline to sit and write it.”