Fiction. African American Studies. IRON BALLOONS features writing from Colin Channer, Marlon James, Elizabeth Nunez, Kwame Dawes, Kaylie Jones, Geoffrey Philp, Rudolph Wallace, Konrad Kirlew, Alwin Bully, A-dziko Simba, and more. An iron balloon is an "unbreakable singer" in Jamaican dancehall language. And unbreakable in music is not a good thing. When the Calabash International Literary Festival Trust began its workshops in 2003, most people said the writing talent in Jamaica had been cased in tempered steel. People had been saying this so much it had turned into a truth. So nobody tried to break it out. Taking many cues from the local music industry, the dynamo that helped to generate careers for acts like Bob Marley and the Wailers, Jimmy Cliff, and Shabba Ranks, the Calabash Writers Workshop has produced a loud discordant chorus of contrary fiction writers who're encouraged to value the sound of their voice.

Colin Channer is a Jamaican writer, often referred to as "Bob Marley with a pen," due to the spiritual, sensual, social themes presented from a literary Jamaican perspective. Indeed, his first two full length novels, Waiting in Vain and Satisfy My Soul, bear the titles of well known Marley songs. He has also written the short story collection Passing Through, and the novellas I'm Still Waiting" and "The Girl with the Golden Shoes." Some of his short stories have been anthologized.