Thank you for the overwhelming response to our November workshops!
We’re pleased to report that all of the NGC Bocas South + Central writing workshops held on Sunday 17 November 2013 were sold out. Thank you to all of you dedicated writers who turned out for these workshops. We’re looking forward to our next workshop series during the 2014 NGC Bocas Lit Fest, 23-27 April […]
Courts Bocas Speak Out Secondary School Tour
Over 10,000 secondary school students were introduced to Spoken Word poetry over the last 6 weeks in the Courts Bocas Speak Out Secondary Schools Tour. Travelling to 30 schools from Tobago to Mayaro, Toco to Port of Spain and many places in between, members of the 2 Cents Movement, that includes some of the nation’s […]
The CRB is back, with help from Bocas
The Caribbean Review of Books, the Trinidad-based quarterly magazine of Caribbean literature and arts, resumes publication this month, after a hiatus of nearly two years — with new support from the Bocas Lit Fest. Published online at www.caribbeanreviewofbooks.com, the CRB reviews new and recent Caribbean books alongside interviews with writers, original poems and fiction, and […]
Register for Writing Workshops
As part of the NGC Bocas South+Central programme, budding writers can sign up for a series of writing workshops to be held on Sunday 17 November at the Southern Academy for the Performing Arts in San Fernando. The three workshops for emerging writing talent cover fiction, life writing/ non-fiction, and a fiction-writing workshop specifically for young aspiring […]
Bocas heads to South + Central Trinidad
Every April, the NGC Bocas Lit Fest transforms Port of Spain into the temporary capital of Caribbean literature, buzzing with writers both famous and soon-to-be, plus spoken word artistes, booksellers, publishers, and thousands of readers gathering to celebrate the power of words, stories, and ideas. Until now, Port of Spain has been the festival’s only […]
Burt Award for Caribbean Literature
2014 OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature open for entries
The OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature is a major award for literary books by Caribbean writers. Books may be entered in three categories: poetry, fiction, and literary non-fiction. The prize includes an award of US$10,000, sponsored by One Caribbean Media. The submission deadline for books published between 1 January and 31 October, 2013, is 15 […]
Last call for Hollick Arvon Caribbean Writers Prize entries
Only four days left to submit entries for the 2014 Hollick Arvon Caribbean Writers Prize! The deadline for submissions is 30 September 2013. The 2014 Prize, worth £10,000, will allow an emerging writer living and working in the Caribbean to devote time to advancing or finishing a work of literary non-fiction. The inaugural Prize, which was for […]
Bocas at the Brooklyn Book Fest
Bocas is happy to team up with Akashic Books and the Caribbean Cultural Theatre to present a showcase of contemporary Caribbean fiction as a Brooklyn Book Festival Bookend event. Thursday 19 September, 6 to 8 pm, at MoCADA in Fort Greene. NYC friends, see you there!
Bocas takes T&T writers to St. Lucia
Prize-winning authors feature at Commonwealth literature conference. Four writers from Trinidad and Tobago were the highlight of a special event at the 16th Triennial Conference of the Association for Commonwealth Literature and Language Studies (ACLALS) in St. Lucia, August 2013. Their special readings were given pride of place in the programme in which hundreds of […]
Significant Changes to Burt Award for Caribbean Literature Guidelines
Your Book or Manuscript May Now be Eligible! As a result of some concerns raised by publishers and authors, CODE has made some significant changes to the guidelines of the Burt Award for Caribbean Literature that will allow more publishers and authors to submit works. The revisions to the guidelines include the following: In addition to […]
Millar wins Commonwealth Short Story Prize
Trinidadian writer Sharon Millar is co-winner of the 2013 Commonwealth Short Story Prize. The announcement was made at an event at the Hay Festival this evening, where Sharon and fellow winner Eliza Robertson of Canada were presented with the prize by celebrated author John le Carré. Sharon’s short story “The Whale House” — published this week […]
Fiction – Oonya Kempadoo and Lawrence Scott
by Shivanee Ramlochan, 2013 NGC Bocas Lit Fest Blogger. The driving question that prompted novelist Lawrence Scott towards writing Light Falling on Bamboo was this: “What was Michel-Jean Cazabon’s life like?” From this seemingly simple interrogation, particular threads of an autobiographical influence can be discerned. The novel, which was longlisted for the 2013 OCM Bocas Prize for […]
New Talent Showcase – Shivanee Ramlochan
by Shivanee Ramlochan, 2013 NGC Bocas Lit Fest Blogger. Well. This is weird, right? When I asked Nicholas Laughlin, the Festival Programme director, how blogging about my own New Talent Showcase reading, held on April 27th, would work, he seemed blissfully unbothered. “Just write about what the experience was like for you,” he said – […]
Edinburgh World Writers’ Conference – A National Literature?
by Shivanee Ramlochan, 2013 NGC Bocas Lit Fest Blogger. Fifty years ago, a dynamic series of talks on literature emerged in Edinburgh. A gathering of writers from around the world brought pressing questions surrounding literature’s purpose to the fore, prioritizing these lively, oft-raucous debates and driving conversations that had resonances not just in Scottish letters, […]
One on One – Irvine Welsh
by Shivanee Ramlochan, 2013 NGC Bocas Lit Fest Blogger. Margaret Thatcher, Scottish writer Irvine Welsh joked, ought to be heralded as the uncredited ghostwriter of his newest novel, Skagboys: indeed, of his first novel, Trainspotting, too. Maybe, Welsh added with (what we may only hope to be) faux-sobriety, Thatcher ought to receive kudos for the vast majority of his […]
One on One – Olive Senior
by Shivanee Ramlochan, 2013 NGC Bocas Lit Fest Blogger. Nary a free seat could be scrounged at Olive Senior’s packed Old Fire Station one on one session, on April 26th, in conversation with 2013 OCM Fiction judging chair, Michael Bucknor. Senior’s life was meant to be lensed beneath the spotlight, but the veteran writer skilfully […]
New Talent Showcase – Sonia Farmer
by Shivanee Ramlochan, 2013 NGC Bocas Lit Fest Blogger. Bahamian poet Sonia Farmer, the second of this year’s New Talent Showcase writers, shared readings from her work on April 26th at the Old Fire Station. Farmer is the winner of the 2011 Small Axe Literary Competition for her poetry, and has been published in tongues of […]
One on One – Marina Warner
by Shivanee Ramlochan, 2013 NGC Bocas Lit Fest Blogger. “I needed to write this book, because I had to find out what I had worshipped,” writer and mythographer Marina Warner remarked during her one-on-one discussion with novelist Lawrence Scott on April 25th at the Old Fire Station. The book she spoke of was her recently […]
Fiction – Courttia Newland and Ifeona Fulani
by Shivanee Ramlochan, 2013 NGC Bocas Lit Fest Blogger. Sharing their fiction at the Old Fire Station on April 25th, Courttia Newland and Ifeona Fulani read from their works The Gospel of Cane and Ten Days in Jamaica, respectively. The emotional tension in Newland’s novel has been described by multiple sources as fringing on unbearable, a quality evoked […]
New Talent Showcase – Danielle Boodoo-Fortuné
by Shivanee Ramlochan, 2013 NGC Bocas Lit Fest Blogger. There is something special about witnessing new talent being unearthed — but as CAISO advocate and writer Colin Robinson pointed out at this, the first of the 2013 NGC Bocas Lit Fest New Talent Showcases, Trinidadian poet Danielle Boodoo-Fortuné isn’t as nascent a literary figure as […]
Father Figures – Colin Grant and Hannah Lowe
by Shivanee Ramlochan, 2013 NGC Bocas Lit Fest Blogger. Colin Grant and Hannah Lowe have written, respectively, a memoir and a poetry collection that pivot around portraits of their fathers. In their twinned reading session on April 25th, the first post-welcome event of the 2013 NGC Bocas Lit Fest, the pair read generous selections from […]
Festival Welcome – Writers vs. Politicians
by Shivanee Ramlochan, 2013 NGC Bocas Lit Fest Blogger. The Festival Welcomes of each Bocas Lit Fest have been spectacularly well-attended since their inception in 2011, and this year continued (and deepened) that trend admirably: attendees were fairly spilling out of the Old Fire Station on April 25th, including a generous cross-section of our programme […]
Announcing the Burt Award for Caribbean Literature
An exciting global initiative in Young Adult literature is coming to the Caribbean. The Burt Award for Caribbean Literature was launched on April 27, 2013, at the NGC Bocas Lit Fest in Port of Spain. Part of a unique global literary award and readership initiative aiming to provide youth everywhere with access to books they […]
Judge Spotlight – Marion Bethel
Chair of the poetry judging panel, Marion Bethel is a Bahamian writer of poetry, short fiction and essays. She has worked as an attorney since 1986, and is a graduate of Cambridge University. Bethel’s work has been published in prominent journals and literary magazines, including BIM, Poui, Callalloo, WomanSpeak, The Caribbean Writer and The Massachusetts Review. Anthologies in which […]
Judge Spotlight – Richard Drayton
Chair of this year’s non-fiction judging panel, Richard Drayton is a Guyana-born historian, and Rhodes Professor of Imperial History at King’s College, London. Drayton’s publications include Nature’s Government: Science, Imperial Britain, and the “Improvement” of the World (2000); he also co-edits the Cambridge Imperial and Post-Colonial Studies series with Megan Vaughan. The historian’s academic history includes studies as a Barbados […]
Judge Spotlight – Michael Bucknor
This year’s chair of the fiction judging panel for the OCM Bocas Prize, Michael Bucknor, is the head of the Department of Literatures in English at the University of the West Indies’ campus in Mona, Jamaica. An editor of the Journal of West Indian Literature, Bucknor’s scholarly accolades include a Ph.D. at the University of Western […]
Six writers make shortlist for 2013 Hollick Arvon Prize
Writers from the Bahamas, Bermuda, and Trinidad and Tobago have been named on the shortlist for the 2013 Hollick Arvon Caribbean Writers Prize, announced today. The six shortlisted writers are: Lisa Allen-Agostini (Trinidad and Tobago) Angela Barry (Bermuda) Vashti Bowlah (Trinidad and Tobago) Barbara Jenkins (Trinidad and Tobago) Sharon Millar (Trinidad and Tobago) Lelawatee Manoo-Rahming […]
Author Spotlight: Oonya Kempadoo
Bocas enthusiasts, we’ve just two weeks left to go until the festival officially kicks off! To further whet your appetite for the impending literary banquet, we’ll spend this time helping you fill in your “Who’s Who” primer of speakers, writers and other talent you won’t want to miss — along with the corresponding dates for […]
Verses Bocas Poetry Slam Round 2
