Joanne C. Hillhouse

Elizabeth Nunez recommending Oh Gad! on NPR in 2014 commented on the fact that "So few Caribbean writers actually live and write in the region" – unlike Hillhouse: "There's such an authenticity to her story.... I immediately knew the people, the characters she wrote about." Hillhouse herself has said: "[W]hile I believe and hope my stories have universal appeal, the Antigua I write about is the Antigua I live and breathe every day, and I write it as we experience it, now."

In 2014, Hillhouse's young adult novel Musical Youth was published, becoming a finalist in the Burt Award for Caribbean Literature. As described by the Trinidad and Tobago Guardian: "Musical Youth is a compelling read because Hillhouse has managed to make readers really care about the characters and their struggles. It is a deserving, prize-winning book that now comfortably claims its place in Caribbean Young Adult literature."

Her writing – which as well as fiction and poetry encompasses reportage and features – has appeared widely in literary journals in the Caribbean region as well as internationally, including in The Caribbean Writer, PEN America, Essence, Writer's Digest, and Huffington Post, Calabash, MaComère, Small Axe. Caribbean Beat, Moko Magazine, Zing plus, The Columbia Review, Mythium, Tongues of the Ocean, POUi, WomanSpeak, A Journal of Literature and Art by Caribbean Women, and other outlets. She is also a contributor to the anthologies Pepperpot: Best New Stories from the Caribbean (2014) and New Daughters of Africa (edited by Margaret Busby, 2019).

In 2004 Hillhouse founded the Wadadli Youth Pen Prize and its accompanying workshops for young writers, with the aim of nurturing and showcasing the literary arts in Antigua and Barbuda.

Hillhouse has worked in local television and was associate producer of The Sweetest Mango (2001), Antigua's first feature-length film, and production manager on No Seed (2002).

Joanne C. Hillhouse (born 1973) is a creative writer, journalist, producer and educator from Antigua and Barbuda. Her writing encompasses novels, short stories, poetry and children's books, and she has contributed to many publications in the Caribbean region as well as internationally, among them the anthologies Pepperpot (2014) and New Daughters of Africa (2019). Hillhouse's books include the poetry collection On Becoming (2003), the novellas The Boy from Willow Bend (2003) and Dancing Nude in the Moonlight (2004), the children's books Fish Outta Water and With Grace, the novel Oh Gad! (2012), and the young adult novel Musical Youth (2014), which was runner-up for the Burt Award for Caribbean Literature. She was named by Literary Hub as one of "10 Female Caribbean Authors You Should Know". An advocate for the development of the arts in Antigua and Barbuda, she founded the Wadadli Youth Pen Prize in 2004.