Vicki-Ann Assevero
Vicki-Ann Assevero is a senior legal counsel, consultant on transactional mediation and social entrepreneur with a longstanding interest in sustainable development. In 2012 she founded The Green Market Santa Cruz, which the UNEP recognized in 2016 as an example of integrated sustainable development in practice. A graduate of Yale College, Harvard Law School, in 2010 […]
Sharifa Ali-Abdullah
Sharifa Ali-Abdullah is the Assistant Resident Representative of the United Nations Development Programme for Trinidad and Tobago, Aruba, Curaçao and Sint Maarten. She is an economist whose work includes key partnerships with international and regional bodies including UN Agencies, IMF, World Bank, IDB, OAS, Commonwealth Secretariat and CARICOM.
Danielle Y.C. McClean
Trinidad-born and US-based writer, translator and interpreter, Danielle Y. C. McClean is the author of the Secrets of Oscuros series. Her debut novel, Secrets of Oscuros: The Protectors’ Pledge (CaribbeanReads 2017, illustrator: Lorena Soriano), placed third in the 2016 CODE Burt Award for Caribbean Young Adult Literature, and its sequel, Secrets of Oscuros: The Whisperer’s Warning (CaribbeanReads 2022, illustrator: Rachel Moss) was the […]
Tamika Gibson
Tamika Gibson is the author of Dreams Beyond the Shore, winner of the 2016 CODE Burt Award for Caribbean YA Literature and one of Kirkus Reviews Best Teen Books of 2017. Between growing up in Trinidad and Tobago and living in the United States, Tamika has always been observing the rich stories unfolding around her. She […]
Gillian Moor
For the last two decades, Gillian has impacted the underground music scene in T&T with her unique acoustic style, creative collaborations and support for emerging performers. Her Songshine open mic series provided a platform for scores of singers, musicians and poets from 2004 to 2009. Her recent critically acclaimed Cool Nights series has continued to […]
Franka Philip
Franka Philip is a Trinidadian journalist and media consultant with 25 years experience in online, radio and print with specialist skills in digital media. She is the co-founder of the media company Trini Good Media.
Wade Mark
Senator Wade Mark is a former Speaker of the House of Representatives in the Parliament of Trinidad and Tobago, and former government minister. He currently leads the Opposition senators in T&T’s Parliament.
Gillian Lucky
Gillian Lucky is a judge at the Supreme Court of Trinidad and Tobago and former Director of the Police Complaints Authority.
Ramesh Deosaran
Ramesh Deosaran ORTT, Professor Emeritus, is a former Independent Senator and distinguished holder of public office in Trinidad and Tobago where he founded The Caribbean Journal of Criminology and Social Psychology. His dozen publications include Inequality, Crime and Education in Trinidad and Tobago: Removing the Masks (2016).
Andy Johnson
Andy Johnson is a senior journalist who has held various positions in Trinidad and Tobago’s print and electronic media. He was the founding President of the Media Association of Trinidad and Tobago, MATT.
Asha Javeed
Asha Javeed is a senior journalist at the Trinidad and Tobago Express.
David Abdulah
David Abdulah is a senior labour leader in Trinidad and Tobago and former General Secretary of the Oilfield Workers’ Trade Union.
Brenda Hughes
Brenda Hughes, the director of our Festival drama readings, is Artistic Director of the Monkey Mountain theatre production company. She has produced and directed plays by Derek Walcott, Trevor Rhone, Ronald Amoroso, Roderick Walcott, and August Strindberg. Trained in acting at Shakespeare and Company, The Mount, Lenox, Massachusetts, she has co-created/created roles in some classic […]
Nigel Scott
Nigel Scott’s 50-year acting career includes leading roles in Walcott’s the Joker of Seville, Pantomime and O Starry, Starry Night. He has played singing roles in Camelot and the Sound of Music. His producer credits include Mantalk and The Last of the Redmen, both Cacique winners for Best Production. Scott is also one of T&T’s leading […]
Gilberte O’Sullivan
Gilberte O’Sullivan is a Trinidadian poet, featured in the “Who’s Next?” lineup of emerging writers at Bocas 2014. Her work is published in the anthology She Sex: Poetry & Prose.
Ira Mathur
Ira Mathur is an award-winning India-born Trinidadian multimedia journalist. Her memoir Love the Dark Days (Peepal Tree Press) was the winner of the 2023 OCM Bocas Prize for Non-Fiction, and shortlisted for the overall prize. It was also named as among the best biographies of 2022 by the UK Guardian. In 2021 she was longlisted […]
Anthony Joseph
Anthony Joseph is an award-winning Trinidad-born poet, novelist, academic, and musician. His latest poetry collection, Sonnets for Albert, was the winner of the 2023 OCM Bocas Prize for Poetry. It previously won the 2022 T.S. Eliot Prize, and was shortlisted for the 2022 Forward Prize for Best Collection. He is the author of four other […]
Mark Wilson
Mark Wilson is an international journalist who has been based in Port of Spain for 25 years. He writes for The Economist and the Economist Intelligence Unit, has a weekly column in the Trinidad Express, and has written several Caribbean texts for Oxford University Press. He also lectures in Global Media and other areas of […]
Gabrielle Hosein
Gabrielle Hosein is a Lecturer at the Institute for Gender and Development Studies, UWI, St. Augustine. She has been involved in Caribbean feminist movement building for two decades.
Derrick Sharbodie
Inspector Derrick Sharbodie, a police officer since 1989, is the founder of St James Police Youth Club for at-risk youth. In 2011 he was awarded a national award, the Chaconia Medal, for public service.
Jennifer Rahim
Jennifer Rahim is a widely published poet, fiction writer and literary critic. She co-edited and introduced two collections of essays, Beyond Borders: Cross-Culturalism and the Caribbean Canon (2009) and Created in the West Indies: Caribbean Perspectives on V.S. Naipaul (2011). Her poetry collection Approaching Sabbaths (2009) was awarded a 2010 Casa de las Américas Prize. […]
Janilla Carrington
Janilla Carrington is a paper recycling teacher at the National Centre for Persons with Disabilities.
Thackwray “Dax” Driver
Dr. Thackwray “Dax” Driver has been the chief executive officer of the Energy Chamber for the past twelve years. During this time, he has overseen the transformation of the South Trinidad Chamber into the Energy Chamber of Trinidad and Tobago. He has pioneered numerous new initiatives and activities for the Energy Chamber, including the Safe […]
Gregory Sloane-Seale
Gregory Sloane-Seale has been working with and on behalf of “at risk” youth at a community level for over 20 years. He is the national coordinator of the Citizen Security Programme in the Ministry of National Security which has as one of its main objectives the reduction in levels of crime and violence in specific […]
Kwynn Johnson
Dr Kwynn Johnson is a Trinidadian artist and a Haitian Studies Scholar. At this year’s NGC Bocas Lit Fest, she is premiering a 30-ft drawing titled Place as Palimpsest. She has been working on this drawing for the past 3 years. It will also be featured in a series of forthcoming shows in Trinidad, Haiti […]
Wesley Gibbings
Wesley Gibbings is an award-winning Trinidadian journalist and press freedom advocate who has covered Caribbean public affairs for over 30 years and has written extensively on journalism and media in the West Indies.
Felicia Chang
Felicia Chang is the Co-Founder of Plantain, a company whose mission is to inspire everyone to want to tell their story. After her training in pure and social sciences she worked on research and development projects in Africa, Europe, the Caribbean and North America. This shaped her belief that we can create more compassionate societies through a better understanding […]
Nathalie Taghaboni
Nathalie Taghaboni is the author of The Savanoy Series. Born in Port of Spain, raised in Toronto, she now resides in the US. She is the CEO of the independent, publishing company, Commess University (Press). Her professional writing began in 2001 as a columnist for the SHARE Caribbean newspaper. She has also written for the […]
Claudia de Verteuil
Claudia de Verteuil is the author of Paradise Plums and Cocoa Beans. She is currently in the final stages of an MA in Psychoanalysis, at Birkbeck University of London. She was born in Trinidad in 1953, was brought up there, leaving in 1972 to study for a teaching degree in London at Goldsmiths College. Claudia […]
Patricia Mohammed
Patricia Mohammed is a scholar, writer and filmmaker. She is Professor of Gender and Cultural Studies and Campus Coordinator/Chair, School for Graduate Studies and Research at the University of the West Indies, St. Augustine, a post she has held variously since 2007. She has headed the Institute for Gender and Development Studies at St Augustine […]