Tiffanie Drayton
Tiffanie Drayton is a mother, world traveller, and journalist whose work has been featured in The New York Times, Vox, Marie Claire, Playboy, Salon, and Complex, and on Yahoo, among other outlets. She has published two nonfiction young adult books, Developing Political Leadership Skills and Coping with Gun Violence, and most recently published Black American […]
Chanda Prescod-Weinstein
Dr. Chanda Prescod-Weinstein is an assistant professor of physics and astronomy and core faculty in women’s and gender studies at the University of New Hampshire. She is also a columnist for New Scientist and Physics World. Her research in theoretical physics focuses on cosmology, neutron stars, and dark matter. She also does research in Black […]
Jason Allen-Paisant
His debut poetry collection Thinking with Trees (Carcanet) won the 2022 OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature, Poetry, and was a 2021 Irish Times Poetry Book of the Year. His work has been anthologised and featured in Granta, The Guardian, The Poetry Review, Callaloo, New Poetries VIII, PN Review and the BBC. His second collection […]
Sophie Jai
Wild Fires (Harper Collins) is the author’s debut novel. It led to being a Writer-in-Residence, and a Visiting Fellowship at the University of Oxford. Wild Fires was also longlisted for the 2019 Peggy Chapman-Andrews Award for a First Novel. Born and raised in Trinidad and Tobago, Jai splits her time between Toronto and London.
Mac Donald Dixon
Mac Donald Dixon was born in St Lucia, West Indies, where he still lives. He is best known as a playwright, but is also an accomplished poet, painter and photographer. A Scream in the Shadows is his third novel.
J. Vijay Maharaj
J. Vijay Maharaj is Trinidadian. She is a lecturer at the University of the West Indies, specialising in cultural identity and cultural citizenship in Caribbean Studies. She has published essays in many important collections, as well as in journals such as Anthurium, Tout Moun, and The Journal of West Indian Literature. The Mystic Masseur’s Wife […]
Simone Leid
Simone Leid is a poet and gender advocate from Trinidad and Tobago. As a gender, community development and climate justice practitioner, her writing often draws from the stories she encounters in the course of her work on the ground in the Caribbean. She has had poems published in SX Salon, Callaloo Journal and Tongues of […]
Nicole Cecilia Delgado
Nicole Cecilia Delgado is a poet, translator, and book artist from San Juan, Puerto Rico. Her most recent book of poems is Periodo especial (Aguadulce/La Impresora, 2019). She currently directs and develops La Impresora, a poetry press and Risograph print shop dedicated to small-scale editorial work and allocating resources to support local independent publishing in […]
John L. Williams
John L. Williams was born, lives, and works in his hometown of Cardiff, Wales. He writes novels, short stories and screenplays set in a Cardiff that is changing fast. He has also published a number of non-fiction titles, including biographies of Black Power leader Michael X, Shirley Bassey, and most recently C.L.R. James. He currently […]
Honor Ford-Smith
Honor Ford-Smith is a scholar, theatre worker and poet. She was educated in Jamaica at St Andrew High School and after studying theatre began teaching at the Edna Manley College for the Visual and Performing Arts in Kingston. She became co-founder and artistic director of Sistren (Sisters), a theatre collective of mainly working-class Jamaican women […]
Carole Boyce Davies
Carole Boyce Davies is Frank H. T. Rhodes Professor of Humane Letters and Professor of Africana Studies and Literatures in English at Cornell University. She has held distinguished professorships at a number of institutions, including the Herskovits Professor of African Studies and Professor of Comparative Literary Studies and African American Studies at Northwestern University. She […]
Chloe Garner
Chloe Garner is director of Ledbury Poetry Festival. In addition to the July Festival, Ledbury is known for initiatives including the Ledbury International Poetry Competition, the Ledbury Munthe Poetry Prize for Second Collections and the Ledbury Poetry Critics scheme. Previously Chloe worked at The Wordsworth Trust and for The Charleston Trust, both museums with strong […]
Shahidha Bari
Shahidha Bari is an academic, critic and broadcaster. She studied English at the University of Cambridge and is now a Professor at the University of the Arts London. She’s the presenter of BBC 2’s flagship arts and culture programme, Inside Culture and BBC Radio 3’s nightly Free Thinking programme, also known as the Arts and Ideas podcast. […]
Christina Sharpe
Christina Sharpe is a writer, Professor, and Canada Research Chair in Black Studies in the Humanities at York University in Toronto. She is the author of In the Wake: On Blackness, Being and Monstrous Intimacies: Making Post-Slavery Subjects, and, most recently, Ordinary Notes, Winner of the 2023 Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction and […]
Rachel Manley
Rachel Manley is a Jamaican writer and academic. She is the recipient of the Governor General’s Award for English Language non-fiction (1997), for her memoir Drumblair: Memories of a Jamaican Childhood. She is the grand-daughter of Edna Manley and editor of her diaries (1989). Globe & Mail awarded her the Best Book prize for Horses in Her Hair: A granddaughter’s story […]
Mayra Santos-Febres
Mayra Santos-Febres is a prize winning Puerto Rican writer, literary critic and academic. She is the author of several highly regarded volumes of poetry, including Anamú Y Manigua (1990), El Orden Escapado (1991), Boat People (1994), Tercer Mundo (2004), Huracanada (2018), and Lecciones De Renuncia (2021). Her literary work has been translated into seven foreign languages, and a bilingual edition of […]
Harmony Farrell
Harmony Farrell (also known as @hotfootharmony) is the recipient of the first ever NGC Bocas Youth Writer Award in 2021. She is a theatre performer, teacher, poet, arts critic, academic researcher, and content creator. With a BA in Theatre and Performance with Creative Writing from the Guildford School of Acting/University of Surrey, Harmony’s writing is […]
Ricqcolia Phillip
Ricqcolia Phillip is a consummate content creator and writer with close to 10 years of working in content in several niches including media and entertainment, lifestyle, travel, and tourism. She got her start hosting her YouTube channel Ricqcolia’s Top 5 (RT5) before becoming the Face of LoopTT where she served as journalist, host, and producer. […]
Marge Blackman
The last daughter of the legendary Ras Shorty I, the creator of soca and jamoo, Marge is a talented singer/songwriter, performing in her childhood with her family band, The Love Circle, and now with her own band, Jamoo.
Apphia Barton
Trinidadian book enthusiast, lover of words and aspiring writer, Apphia uses her vivid imagination and creative ideas to learn from and influence her environment. She attributes all that she is to her relationship with books and reading.
Chrisette Benjamin
Chrisette Benjamin is a 21-year old graduate in International Relations from the University of the West Indies St. Augustine, youth leader, Vice Chairman of the Nariva Mayaro District Youth Council, writer for Caribbean Insight Magazine, and a strong advocate for amplifying the voice of the nation’s youth. In 2020, she registered her youth-led NGO, the […]
Okera Duncan
Okera Duncan is an island scholar, young visionary, entrepreneur, influencer and a current International Business Major at the Arthur Lok Jack Global School of Business. His many leadership posts and portfolios include CEO and Founder of Sapienza Educational Services (Language and Cultural Services Business) and Influencer at BrightBoy Inspired (Social Media Blog). He is a […]
Sarah Prince
A born nature lover, Sarah has taken her passion for the environment and pursued it academically. Having studied Environmental Science and Sustainable Technology at the University of the West Indies, she now works with the UNDP and is able to contribute to a more sustainable Trinidad and Tobago. Additionally, Sarah serves as a choreographer for […]
Kemuel Pascall
Kemuel Pascall is pursuing a BA in Journalism at the College of Science Technology and the Applied Arts of Trinidad and Tobago (COSTAATT), and is a civilian employee of the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service. A former RBC Young Leader, he represented COSTAATT at the 16th National Youth Parliament of Trinidad and Tobago as Opposition […]
Shane John
Shane John is a first year Law student, Executive Secretary of the National Parang Association of Trinidad and Tobago, Integrity Ambassador of the National Commission of Integrity of Trinidad and Tobago, and President of the Trinidad Youth Council. He was Head Boy of the Prefects at Queen’s Royal College, and was awarded the Principal’s Award […]
Sarah Dass
Sarah Dass was born and raised in Trinidad and Tobago. A graduate of the University of the West Indies and University College London, she works as an office administrator by day and writes stories about growing up in the Caribbean by night. Her most recent YA novel, When the Vibe Is Right, will be published […]
Marielle Forbes
Marielle Forbes is the Hospitality and General Manager at Bocas Lit Fest. She is a Project Developer and Arts Administrator, with experience in the fields of hospitality, event and project management, carnival arts production and creative industry support. She has held creative stewardships under well-established Trinidadian arts practitioners, including fashion designers, dance choreographers and film […]
Paula David
Born and raised in Jamaica, Paula has lived and worked in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines for a little over 30 years. A member of the Caribbean Book Club, she describes herself as “a little obsessive about the history, literature, art and music of the African diaspora in the Americas.” “I am by no means […]
Felene Cayetano
Felene Michelle Cayetano is a Garifuna, Librarian, Author, Mother and Screenwriter/Director. Since 2007, she has served as Librarian at the National Heritage Library branch of the Belize National Library Service and Information System. She is a founding member of the Belizean Writers Guild and currently serves on the boards of directors of the Belize Book […]
Nadine McNeil
Jamaican-born, Nadine McNeil’s mantra is: when one of us suffers we all suffer. Yet when one of us heals, we all heal. As a writer, yoga teacher, speaker, wisdom mentor and humanitarian her work aims to ignite infinite possibilities in people around the world, especially within diverse underserved communities. Compassion, justice and truth are the intrinsic […]