Dionne Brand
Dionne Brand is the acclaimed author of twenty-four books of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction — most recently Salvage: Readings from the Wreck. Her books have won the Trillium Book Award, the Griffin Poetry Prize, the Toronto Book Award, the 2019 OCM Bocas Prize for Fiction, and the 2021 Windham-Campbell Prize for Fiction, among other awards.
Jacqueline Bishop
Jacqueline Bishop is an award-winning writer and visual artist born in Jamaica, who now lives between London and New York City. Her book The Gymnast and Other Positions won the nonfiction category of the 2016 OCM Bocas Prize. The Gift of Music and Song: Interviews with Jamaican Women Writers is forthcoming.
Reginald Dwayne Betts
Reginald Dwayne Betts is the author of three books. His latest is the poetry collection Bastards of the Reagan Era. Betts is a recipient of fellowships from Soros Justice Foundation, Harvard’s Radcliffe Institute of Advanced Studies, and the Poetry Foundation. (Sponsored by the US Embassy).
Gerard Besson
Gerard Besson is a Trinidadian historian, writer, and founder of Paria Publishing. He was awarded the Hummingbird Gold Medal for Heritage Preservation and Promotion and the Lifetime Achievement Award for Heritage Preservation from the National Trust of Trinidad and Tobago. He has authored numerous books on Trinidadian history and culture. His latest novel is Roume […]
Claire Armitstead
Claire Armitstead is books editor for the UK Guardian and Observer. She presents the weekly Guardian books podcast and is a regular commentator on radio, and at live events across the UK and internationally.
Ibrahim Ahmad
Ibrahim Ahmad is senior editor at Akashic Books, an award-winning Brooklyn-based independent publishing company. He leads frequent workshops with the Algonkian Writers Conferences and New York Writers Workshop, where he also serves on the board of directors.
Michelene Adams
Michelene Adams returned to Trinidad in 2010 after slowly travelling steadily south from Canada to the Bahamas to Grenada over a period of 27 years. She teaches English at the Centre for Education Programmes, University of Trinidad and Tobago.
Alscess Lewis-Brown
Alscess Lewis-Brown is an educator and children’s author from the US Virgin Islands. She is editor-in-chief of The Caribbean Writer, an international literary journal with a Caribbean focus published annually by the University of the Virgin Islands. She has written six books for young readers, including the popular Moko Jumbi Majorette series (published by Little Bell/Campanita Books).
Ramabai Espinet
Ramabai Espinet was born in Trinidad & Tobago and currently lives in Toronto, Canada. She is an academic, a writer, and critic. Her published works include the novel The Swinging Bridge, the collection of poetry Nuclear Seasons, and the children’s books The Princess of Spadina and Ninja’s Carnival.
Tracy Assing
Tracy Assing is a writer, editor and filmmaker. Her 2010 film The Amerindians explored Assing’s own identity, the indigenous history of the islands and the political structure of the Santa Rosa Carib Community (now the First People’s Community).
Arielle John
Determined to celebrate the West Indian now, while designing our shared survival of the future, Arielle John approaches poetry and theatre performance as medicine for Atlantic peoples, their resilient cultures, and the land (and sea) they occupy. The millennial’s devotion to community-building work centres on transformative justice, re-indigenized living and the healing arts as she […]
Brendon O’Brien
Brendon O’Brien is an activist, writer, director and performer who’s been doing Spoken Word for the past 7 years. Brendon was the 2014 Verses Bocas Poetry Slam 2nd Place winner, and one of the featured poets of Trinidad and Tobago Radio Network’s ‘Free Speech Project’ from 2012-2014. He is the Artistic Director of the.art.IS Performing […]
Ariana Herbert
Ariana Herbert is a spoken word poet and writer. She believes in the magic of storytelling and upholds the exploration of narratives concerning empathy, women and children. Ariana regularly enjoys no less than three cups of tea a day, daily doses of laughter and dancing, and is on a mission to be kind.
Judy Raymond
Judy Raymond, writer, journalist and editor, is a former editor in chief of the T&T Newsday and Trinidad Guardian. Her latest book is the biography Beryl McBurnie (UWI Press, 2018). Her short story “The Old Monsters” was shortlisted for the 2023 Brooklyn Caribbean Literary Festival Elizabeth Nunez Award for Writers in the Caribbean.
Brandon O’Brien
Brandon O’Brien is a writer, performance poet, and teaching artist from Trinidad and Tobago. His work has been shortlisted for the 2014 Alice Yard Prize for Art Writing, the 2014 and 2015 Small Axe Literary Competitions, and the 2020 Ignyte Award for Best in Speculative Poetry, and is published in Uncanny Magazine, Fireside Magazine, Strange […]
Ayanna Lloyd Banwo
Ayanna Lloyd Banwo is the author of the highly acclaimed novel When We Were Birds (Hamish Hamilton), winner of the 2023 OCM Bocas Prize for Fiction, and shortlisted for the overall prize. It was previously named one of the best debut novels of 2022 by the UK Observer. She is from Trinidad and Tobago and […]
June Aming
June Aming is a fiction writer who resides in Trinidad and Tobago. Her short stories have been included in several anthologies, and the story “Carnival Baby” was shortlisted for Small Axe competition 2014. She has previously shared her work at Carifesta X and at the Miami Book Fair 2013, 2014 and 2015. She was a […]
Marlon James
Marlon James was born in Jamaica in 1970. His most recent novel, Black Leopard, Red Wolf, is the first novel in James’s Dark Star trilogy. His previous novel, A Brief History of Seven Killings, was the winner of the 2015 Man Booker Prize, The American Book Award, and The Anisfield-Wolf Book Prize for fiction. He […]
Andre Bagoo
Andre Bagoo is a writer, poet, and essayist. His books include the essay collection The Undiscovered Country (Peepal Tree Press, 2020), winner of the 2021 OCM Bocas Prize for Non-Fiction, as well as five poetry collections, most recently Midnight Bestiaries (Broken Sleep Books, 2024). His fiction debut, The Dreaming, was published by Peepal Tree in […]
Ken Ramchand
Ken Ramchand, distinguished literary critic, is the author of the seminal study The West Indian Novel and Its Background. He is Professor Emeritus of West Indian literature at the University of West Indies and a former President of the University of Trinidad and Tobago. In 2014, he received the Bocas Henry Swanzy Award for his […]
Kevin Jared Hosein
Kevin Jared Hosein is the author, most recently, of Hungry Ghosts, fiction winner of the 2024 OCM Bocas Prize and the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction. It had also been longlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize. He is a two-time winner of the Commonwealth Short Story Prize, regionally in 2015 and overall in 2018. […]
Summer Edward
Summer Edward is a Gingko Prize longlisted author who writes for children and adults. Her children’s book, The Wonder of the World Leaf (HarperCollins UK/Collins Big Cat), was published on April 1, 2021. She also works as a children’s fiction editor at Heinemann, a readers’ advisory specialist at EBSCOHost Novelist, and reviews Caribbean children’s and […]
Marjorie Thorpe
Marjorie Thorpe, is a former Campus and University Dean of the Faculty of Arts and General Studies at UWI, St. Augustine. From 1988 to 1992 she was Trinidad and Tobago’s ambassador to the United Nations. She was the Overall Vice-Chair of the OCM Bocas Prize from 2011 – 2016.
Olive Senior
Olive Senior, Jamaica’s 2021-2024 Poet Laureate, is the award-winning author of 18 books of fiction, non-fiction, poetry and children’s literature and other published work. Her many awards include Canada’s Writers Trust Matt Cohen Award for Lifetime Achievement, the OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature, the Commonwealth Writers Prize, an honorary doctorate from the University of […]
Colin Robinson
Colin Robinson has returned home to Trinidad and Tobago twice: from Leeds at age four, and from Brooklyn at forty-five. His debut poetry collection You Have You Father Hard Head was published in 2016.
Jeremy Poynting
Jeremy Poynting is the founder of Peepal Tree Press based in the UK, the leading publisher of contemporary Caribbean writing. As a literary critic he has published widely in journals such as The New Voices and Journal of Commonwealth Literature on the topic of Indo-Caribbean literature. He is the recipient of the 2016 Bocas Henry […]
Shivanee Ramlochan
Shivanee Ramlochan’s first book of poems, Everyone Knows I Am a Haunting (Peepal Tree Press, 2017) was a finalist for the 2018 People’s Choice T&T Book of the Year, and shortlisted for the Felix Dennis Forward Prize for Best First Collection. Shivanee was shortlisted for the 2018 Bridport Prize for Poetry. “The Red Thread Cycle”, […]
Sharon Millar
Sharon Millar was born and lives in Trinidad. She is the winner of the 2013 Commonwealth Short Story Prize and the 2012 Small Axe Short Fiction Award. Her first collection The Whale House and other stories (Peepal Tree Press 2015) was long-listed for the 2016 OCM Bocas Prize. Her work has been anthologized in Pepperpot: Best New […]
Earl Lovelace
Earl Lovelace is a Trinidadian writer. His books include the Caribbean classic The Dragon Can’t Dance, and Salt, winner of the 1997 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize. His novel Is Just a Movie won the 2012 OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature and the Grand Prize for Caribbean Literature from the Regional Council of Guadeloupe. He was […]
Karen Lord
Barbadian writer Dr. Karen Lord is the author, most recently, of The Blue, Beautiful World, longlisted for the 2024 Women’s Prize for Fiction. Redemption in Indigo, which won the William L. Crawford Award and the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Adult Literature, was nominated for the World Fantasy Award for Best Novel. Her other works include […]