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Bios & Bookmarks: Online Reading Series

Our past seasons are listed below and available via our Facebook page and Youtube channel!

Bios & Bookmarks is an online reading series with popular authors, powered by the NGC Bocas Lit Fest. It features readings and discussions with both familiar and new Caribbean writers across the region and diaspora – allowing us to get to know the faces behind the words and what’s on their bookshelves.

Launched in the midst of the coronavirus ‘lockdown’ period back in April 2020, Bios & Bookmarks has become one of our most popular virtual offerings, and is now a regular part of our online programming. 

In 2021, we added themes to the seasons – in March all episodes focused on “Crime and Wonderment”, and Jacob Ross and Monique Roffey were among the guests. 

In September, we looked at “Telling Complex Family Stories”, with a guest cast that included Celeste Mohammed, Rajiv Mohabir and Lawrence Scott. And our last season of 2021 was themed “At Home the Green Remains”, the title of a John Figueroa poem, and focuses on our relationship with our regional ecology and its preservation.

The Facebook Live platform allows our audience to post comments and questions for our guests, making this a truly up-close-and-personal encounter with some of your favourite authors, despite the virtual setting. 

Catch up on past episodes below!

Featuring authors Lauren K. Alleyne, Lisa Allen-Agostini, Sonia Farmer, Curdella Forbes, Lauren Francis-Sharma, Richard Georges, Aaron Kamugisha, Anthony Joseph, Caroline Mackenzie and Tessa McWatt. 

Featuring authors Karen Lord, Diana McCaulay, Rabindranath Maharaj, Jeanelle Frontin, Amanda Alcantara, and Roger Robinson.

Season 3 of Bios & Bookmarks ended on 12 December 2020 and featured authors Canisia Lubrin, Tamika Gibson, Mervyn Taylor, Alex Wheatle, Donna Hemans and Bernardine Evaristo.

We open 2021 with a new season and a new theme: Crime & Wonderment! Over six Sundays, the series explored the theme of “Crime and Wonderment” with new and acclaimed writers, delving into the crime and suspense realm, and exploring behind the speculative curtain of mythical tales and folkloric imaginations.

Welcome to Season 5 of Bios & Bookmarks: Telling Complex Family Stories!

Welcome to Season 6 of Bios & Bookmarks, powered by the NGC Bocas Lit Fest! Our theme, “At Home the Green Remains”, explores Caribbean writers in context with the natural landscapes they inhabit and address.
Season 7 of Bios & Bookmarks: “A Change Is Gonna Come” focuses on social justice in our region and beyond; how can we work to build a better world?
Welcome to Season 8 of Bios & Bookmarks, exploring “The Complexity of Caribbean Love”. For our second season of 2022, we want to know what makes the Caribbean heart tick, thump, limbo and lavway. Can a duppy love a living soul? Is it true you cyah make love on hungry belly? In the six books before us, writers with roots in Guyana, the Dominican Republic, Trinidad and Tobago, and Jamaica spring off the diving board into the messiness, splendour and everydayness of love, exploring intimacy between LGBTQI paramours, navigating matrilineal ties, exhuming old ghosts between parents and children, and looking without flinching into the deep tides that encircle our islands’ hearts.

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