Tanya Batson-Savage
Tanya Batson-Savage is a writer, filmmaker, publisher and creative consultant, with a love of mangoes. She is currently publisher and editor in chief of and the online magazine Susumba and its literary offshoot Susumba’s Book Bag as well as the award-winning independent publishing house, Blue Banyan Books – the fastest growing tradebook publisher in the […]
Ronald Cummings
Ronald Cummings is Professor of Caribbean Literature and Black Diaspora Studies at McMaster University, Canada. He has co-edited significant volumes including The Routledge Handbook of Caribbean Studies (with Pat Noxolo and Kevon Rhiney), The Fire That Time: Transnational Black Radicalism and The Sir George Williams University Occupation ( with Nalini Mohabir) and Caribbean Literature in […]
Gene Lawrence
Gene is a musician (finger style acoustic guitarist), a composer and arranger who has performed throughout the Caribbean and abroad, and has several albums to his credit. His compositions and arrangements have been used by some of the biggest names in Caribbean Show Business, such as Derek Walcott, Dr. Adrian Augier, Ellen O’Malley Camps, Paul […]
Alana-Marie Gopaul
Alana-Marie Gopaul is currently the Marketing and Media Manager at Bocas Lit Fest. Her professional experiences span the fields of Psychology, Human Resource Management and Corporate Communications, but her most fulfilling roles have been with NGOs including TEDxPortofSpain, the Green Screen Environmental Film Festival, and as a volunteer tutor with ALTA, before finding a home […]
Jherane Patmore
Jherane Patmore is the owner and founder of Rebel Women Lit. She started this literary community in 2018 as a book club and has since grown it into a bookstore, community library, podcast and it is home to the Spoken & Seen Festival & Caribbean Readers’ Award. Rebel Women Lit aims to centre communal reading […]
Ambika Jadoonanan
Ambika Jadoonanan is an Indo-Trinidadian, final year Engineering student with a passion for reading. Her aim is to read as many diverse books as possible containing stimulating topics that are relevant and critical in today’s society. The Rebel Women Lit’s Caribbean Readers’ Awards Content Creator winner, Ambika is commonly known as ambi_reads within the bookstagram […]
Brandon Mc Ivor
Brandon Mc Ivor is a Trinidadian writer living in Ehime, Japan. His work has been published by adda, the Caribbean Writer, and Akashic Books among other journals. He was twice shortlisted for the Small Axe Literary Prize, and in 2020 was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Short Story Prize. He is currently working on his first […]
Anne Walmsley
Anne Walmsley is a British-born editor, scholar, critic and author, notable as a specialist in Caribbean art and literature, whose career spans five decades. She is the recipient of the 2018 Bocas Henry Swanzy Award. She is widely recognised for her work as Longman’s Caribbean publisher, and for Caribbean books that she authored and edited, including the landmark […]
Joan Dayal
Joan Dayal, proprietor of Paper Based, one of the Caribbean’s leading independent bookshops, is the recipient of the 2017 Bocas Henry Swanzy Award for Distinguished Service to Caribbean Letters. Since its inception, Paper Based has been home not only to the sale of titles in Caribbean fiction, non-fiction, and poetry: through a regular reading series, […]
Cecilia Salazar
Cecilia Salazar is one of Trinidad and Tobago’s leading actors. She holds a BA in theatre from Brock University, Ontario, Canada. She has graced the stage in many iconographic roles such as Miss Miles, The Woman of the World; Queen Mamala in the 3canal show; Lizzie in Mary Could Dance; Elsa in The Sound of […]
Courttia Newland
Courttia Newland is the author of several books including his much lauded debut, The Scholar. His latest novel is A River Called Time (2021). He co-edited The Penguin Book of New Black Writing in Britain, and his short stories have featured in various anthologies and broadcast on BBC Radio 4. He was shortlisted for the 2007 CWA Dagger […]
Sheena Kamal
Sheena Kamal holds an HBA in Political Science from the University of Toronto, and was awarded a TD Canada Trust scholarship for community leadership and activism around the issue of homelessness. She was born in Trinidad and Tobago, and migrated to Canada as a child. Her bestselling debut The Lost Ones won her a Kobo Emerging Writer Prize, […]
Tanya Shirley
Tanya Shirley is a Jamaican poet. She currently teaches in the Department of Literatures in English, UWI, Mona. Her poetry collection, The Merchant of Feathers, was released in 2014. She is a Cave Canem Fellow.
Pauliana “Pauls” Padmore
Pauliana “The Pauls” Padmore is a talented young musician and songwriter. More than an entertainer, she uses music to participate in community outreach with organizations such as The 2 Cents Movement, The Empress Foundation and Quays: the Vibesquad.
Kirk Budhooram
Kirk Budhooram was awarded his MFA in Creative Writing from the University of the West Indies, St. Augustine in 2014. He was awarded the David Hough Literary Award in 2016 for a short story published in The Caribbean Writer. In 2018, he was shortlisted in the sx salon Literary Competition. In September 2019, his short […]
Jan Westmaas
Jan Westmaas, linguist, teacher and traveller extraordinaire, chronicles his experiences of 40 years of travelling the world from 1972 – 2013, in his book Out of the Box: Tales of Travel.
Hazel Manning
Hazel Manning is a former Cabinet Minister in the Government of Trinidad and Tobago. Her father, the late educator, Mr. Albert Boysie Huggins conducted considerable research into the “Companies” of black American soldiers who settled in Trinidad in 1812. Mrs. Manning has done immense work in furthering the understanding and appreciation of Merikin history. She […]
Eric Lewis
Eric Lewis has been researching the pre and post-colonial history of Moruga and the activities of the First Peoples in that area of South Trinidad. Lewis founded the St Vincent Ferrer Society (SVFS) in 2005, which has assisted in the revitalising of the St Peter’s celebration in collaboration with the Grand Chemin Fishing Association and […]
Bernardine Evaristo
Bernardine Evaristo, OBE, FRSL, FRSA, FEA, is an author, literary critic and editor. Her eighth book, the novel, Girl, Woman, Other, won the Booker Prize in 2019, making her the first black woman and the first black British person to win it. www.bevaristo.com
Grace Nichols
Her first collection, I is a Long Memoried Woman (1983) won the Commonwealth Poetry Prize. Other collections (Virago) include The Fat Black Woman’s Poems (1984), Lazy Thoughts of a Lazy Woman (1989), Sunrise (1996), winner of the Guyana Prize, and Startling the Flying Fish (2006). Her poetry books for younger readers, include Come on into […]
Roger Robinson
Roger Robinson is a writer and performer who lives between London and Trinidad. His book A Portable Paradise (Peepal Tree Press) won the prestigious T. S. Eliot Prize 2019, and his first collection, The Butterfly Hotel, was shortlisted for The OCM Bocas Prize for Poetry. Roger is the lead vocalist for King Midas Sound, whose […]
Nicolette Bethel
Nicolette Bethel is a Bahamian poet, playwright, and the editor of the poetry journal tongues of the ocean. She is a poetry judge for the 2012 OCM Bocas Prize.
Kevin Baldeosingh
Kevin Baldeosingh is a Trinidadian newspaper columnist, author and co-founder and chairman of the Trinidad and Tobago Humanist Association. Aside from his journalistic work he has published numerous short stories, three novels, and a play, The Comedian, which was one of the four winners of the National Drama Association’s playwriting contest. In 2000 and 2001 […]
John Agard
John Agard Guyanese playwright, poet, and children’s writer living in Britain. He received the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry in 2012, The BookTrust Lifetime Achievement Award in 2021 and numerous prizes for his poetry, including the 1982 Casa de las Americas Prize for Pan Man. Accolades for his children’s writing include the 1997 Paul Hamlyn […]
Hazel Simmons-McDonald
Hazel Simmons-McDonald, Professor Emerita, Applied Linguistics, is a former Pro-Vice Chancellor and Principal of the University of the West Indies Open Campus. She has edited anthologies of poetry and prose, and serves on the editorial board of Poui, a journal of creative writing.
Esther Figueroa
Esther Figueroa, Ph.D., is a Jamaican independent filmmaker, writer and linguist. Figueroa writes in a variety of genres — fiction and nonfiction, poetry and prose — on a wide range of topics. Limbo is her debut novel. Previous publications include Sociolinguistic Metatheory, and At Home the Green Remains. Her films include the award-winning feature documentary […]
Ellah Allfrey
Ellah Allfrey, OBE, is the deputy editor of Granta. She was chair of the fiction judges for the 2012 OCM Bocas Prize.
Carolyn Ali
For over four decades, Carolyn Ali has enjoyed a successful career, teaching and writing in Trinidad and Tobago. From the 1980s to the 90s, her children’s stories regularly appeared in the Junior Express. In 2010, her book Stories and Recipes from The Egg Lady, published by Hansib, was launched at the University of the West […]
Amanda Smyth
Amanda Smyth is Irish-Trinidadian and author of three novels. Black Rock (Serpents Tail) won the Prix du Premier Roman Etranger, a NAACP award nomination, was shortlisted for McKitterick Prize, and selected as an Oprah Winfrey Summer Read. Her second novel, A Kind of Eden, set in contemporary Trinidad (2013) was optioned as a TV series. Her […]
Ryan Durgasingh
Ryan Durgasingh is an editor and interviewer for The Spaces Between Words podcast.