Participants

Playwright, poet, short-story and children's writer, John Agard was born on 21 June 1949 in British Guiana (now Guyana).

Jason Cole grew up in Barbados and then studied fine art print making in England before becoming an illustrator.  His art has been featured in story books, text books and a newspaper comic strip in Barbados. [caption id="attachment_481" align="al...

Award-winning novelist and short story writer from Belize who currently teaches at Kent State University in Ohio

Jamaican poet and recipient of the Musgrave Gold Medal as well as professor at the University of Michigan.

Her book, “Foxy: My Life in Three Acts,” was published by Grand Central Publishing this spring. It details her career from her rise as an actress in blackploitation films of the 1970s and her breakthrough role in Quentin Tarentino’s film “Jackie Brown” to her romantic involvements with Kareem Abdul Jabar, Freddie Prinze and Richard Pryor.

Joanne C. Hillhouse, Antiguan author of two novels as well as a freelance writer, editor and producer. She is co-founder of the Wadadli Youth Pen Prize and participates in various initiatives to promote literary arts in the Caribbean region.

After pursuing careers in fashion, retail and tourism, McFadden decided to devote time to writing. Her premiere novel, “Sugar,” was published in 2000 and was met with great critical acclaim.

Grace Nichols was born in Georgetown, Guyana, in 1950 and grew up in a small country village on the Guyanese coast. She moved to the city with her family when she was eight, an experience central to her first novel, Whole of a Morning Sky (1986), set in 1960s Guyana in the middle of the country's struggle for independence.

Elizabeth Nunez emigrated from Trinidad after completing high school there. She received her MA and Ph.D. in English from New York University and is CUNY Distinguished Professor of English at Medgar Evers College where she chairs the English Department.

Barbadian Esther Phillips holds an MFA degree in Creative Writing from the University of Miami where she was awarded a James Michener Fellowship. For her thesis, she won the Alfred Boas Poetry Prize of the Academy of American Poets in 1999. [cap...

Wilkins is founder and managing director of Tamarind, a publishing company primarily producing children’s books with a Caribbean orientation.