ST. CROIX, U.S. VIRGIN ISLANDS — The Caribbean Writer (TCW) in the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences of the University of the Virgin Islands(UVI) together with the Virgin Islands Literary Festival and Book Fair, LLC (VI Lit Fest) will host the tenth iteration of the VI Lit Fest April 11th through 14th 2024 under the community-focused theme: “Legacies: Reckoning and Resilience,” which is also the theme shared with Volume 38 of TCW, currently being prepped for publication. New and returning authors have come to celebrate our Tenth Anniversary.

A Peek at Some of the Authors Coming

Eleanor Shearer is the author of River Sing Me Home, A Good Morning America, Book Club Pick and one of Time Magazine’s must-read books of 2023. Powerful, moving, and redemptive, River Sing Me Home tells of a mother's desperate search to find her stolen children and her freedom. Shearer is a mixed-race writer and the granddaughter of Windrush generation immigrants. Her fieldwork in St. Lucia and Barbados helped inspire her first novel.

Cyril Dabydeen is a Guyana-born Canadian writer of Indian descent. He grew up in Rose Hall sugar plantation with the sense of Indian indenture rooted in his family background. Cyril Dabydeen teaches Creative Writing at the University of Ottawa and is a former Poet Laureate of Ottawa (1984-87). His work has appeared in over 60 literary magazines and anthologies world-wide. He has done more than 300 readings internationally and has twice adjudicated for the Governor General's Award (Poetry) and the USA Neustadt International Prize for Literature (Oklahoma) in 2000.

Celeste Mohammed has been a lawyer since 2001 but she has been telling stories all her life.

A native of Trinidad and Tobago, in 2016, she graduated from Lesley University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, with an MFA in Creative Writing (Fiction).

Celeste’s goal is to dispel all myths about island-life and island-people, and to highlight the points of intersection between Caribbean and North American interests. In particular, she aims to showcase Trinidad’s entrenched political, racial, and class alliances; the generosity (and yet, cruelty) of the average Trini; the sense of optimism (and yet, harsh reality) which permeates everyday interaction; and the musicality and resonance of Caribbean creole (kriol) expression.

Her work has appeared in The New England Review, Litmag, Epiphany, The Rumpus, among other places. She is the recipient of a 2018 PEN/Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize for Emerging Writers. She was also awarded the 2019 Virginia Woolf Award for Short Fiction, and the 2017 John D Gardner Memorial Prize for Fiction.

She currently resides in Trinidad with her family.

Ana  Portnoy Brimmer  is a poet and organizer from Puerto Rico. To Love An Island, her debut poetry collection, was originally the winner of YesYes Books’ 2019 Vinyl 45 Chapbook Contest. She's currently working on the Spanish edition, La Impresora. Ana is the winner of the 92Y Discovery Poetry Contest 2020 and was named one of Poets & Writers 2021 Debut Poets. She is the daughter of Mexican Jewish immigrants, resides in Puerto Rico, and finds hope in the poetics of dance parties and revolution.

Dr. Carlyle Corbin is a United Nations’ expert and former U.S. Virgin Islands official. He has dedicated his career to self-determination, advocacy, and education — particularly as it relates to the Caribbean and Oceania — for over two decades.

Joy Lawrence is a celebrated Antiguan poet and writer whose works have had a significant impact on the country’s cultural landscape. Her poetry often addresses themes of identity, memory, and the experience of growing up in a postcolonial Caribbean society. In 2004, Lawrence was the recipient of a UNESCO Honor Award for Outstanding Contribution to the Improvement of Literacy and the Development of the Literary Arts in Antigua and Barbuda.

Karen Thurland, Ph.D. is a Crucian historian, educator, and author of five books about St. Croix, where she was born and raised. In a recent interview, Thurland stated that while she grew up as an avid reader, the books she read as a child were not about people like her or who looked like her. This has motivated her to write about her people because there are so many stories to tell. More people need to write about them, she believes. Thurland will conduct readings and participate in a panel discussion entitled “Reckoning with Lore and Legacies: Writing about Community.”

Richard Georges is the first poet laureate of the British Virgin Islands. He is the current president of the H. Lavity Stoutt Community College and a founding editor of MOKO: Caribbean Arts & Letters. Born in Port of Spain, Trinidad, Georges was raised and currently resides in the British Virgin Islands.

Cadwell Turnbull is the author of The Lesson and No Gods, No Monsters. His short fiction has appeared in The Verge, Lightspeed, Nightmare, Asimov’s Science Fiction, and several anthologies, including The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2018 and The Year’s Best Science Fiction and Fantasy 2019. The Lesson was the winner of the 2020 Neukom Institute Literary Award in the debut category and No Gods, No Monsters won the 2022 Lambda Literary Award for Best LGBTQ Speculative Fiction. the long-awaited sequel to No Gods, No Monsters from award-winning author Cadwell Turnbull, We Are the Crisis sees humans and monsters clash as civil rights collide with preternatural forces.

Tracy J. Prince, Ph.D. is a research professor at Portland State University, a Fulbright (Malta), and author of Culture Wars in British Literature. She has taught in Turkey, Canada, and the United States, with extensive research time in England, Australia, South Africa, and France. Prince will speak about what immigrant Caribbean authors in the UK have said about being included in British Literature discussions, university courses, and anthologies. Which writers are included in a British identity? Who is excluded? With many photos and author quotes, her presentation focuses on 20th century writers and filmmakers, the descendants of Windrush, the Booker Prize, and how the term Black British came to be defined.

Jamaica Kincaid is no stranger to the VI Lit Fest. She is an Antiguan American novelist, essayist, gardener, and gardening writer who lives in North Bennington, Vermont. Kincaid is Professor of African and African American Studies in Residence at Harvard University during the academic year.

Tobias S. Buckell is a New York Times Bestselling and World Fantasy Award-winning author born in the Caribbean. He grew up in Grenada and spent time in the British and US Virgin Islands which influence much of his work. His novels and almost one hundred stories have been translated into nineteen different languages.

Tiphanie Yanique is a novelist, poet, essayist, and short story writer. Her most recent publication is a novel entitled: Monster in the Middle (2021). She is the author of the poetry collection, Wife, which won the 2016 Bocas Prize in Caribbean poetry and the United Kingdom’s 2016 Forward/Felix Dennis Prize for a First Collection. Tiphanie is also the author of the novel, Land of Love and Drowning, which won the 2014 Flaherty-Dunnan First Novel Award from the Center for Fiction, the Phillis Wheatley Award for Pan-African Literature, and the American Academy of Arts and Letters Rosenthal Family Foundation Award and was listed by NPR as one of the Best Books of 2014. Land of Love and Drowning was also a finalist for the Orion Award in Environmental Literature and the Hurston-Wright Legacy Award. Tiphanie is from the Virgin Islands. She grew up in the Hospital Ground neighborhood in St. Thomas. She lives now with her family in Atlanta where she is a tenured associate professor at Emory University.

Benito Wheatley is special envoy of the British Virgin Islands (BVI) Government and the Premier’s Advisor on International Relations, with a particular focus on the United Kingdom (UK), European Union (EU) and United Nations (UN). He was formerly the BVI Representative to the UK and EU during which time he served as the Territory’s chief diplomat and Director of the BVI London Office, as well as Senior International Strategist for the Premier’s Office with responsibility for UN and the Commonwealth.

Aaron Gamaliel Ramos is a retired Professor of Social Sciences at the Río Piedras Campus, University of Puerto Rico (UPR). He was the Director of the Institute of Caribbean Studies at that institution [1992-1998]. He holds a B.A. in Political Science from the UPR [1967], and a Doctoral degree in Political Sociology from Rutgers University [1984]. His research explores Caribbean history, the relationship of culture and politics in Puerto Rico and the Caribbean and is the author of various publications on that area. His most recent book is, Islas migajas: los países no in dependientes del Caribe contemporáneo (2016).

Sponsors

USVI Literary Festival & Book Fair 2024 pays tribute to Dr. David Hall, the outgoing president of the University of The Virgin Islands and to Candia Atwater, the founding member and chairman of the board at The Caribbean Museum Center for the Arts.