Bocas Lit Fest

05/06/2026

We are thrilled to announce the date of Bocas Couva 2026, the first in a series of four one-day community literary and cultural festivals across Trinidad and Tobago, presented by Methanex Trinidad.

Join us at the Lisas Gardens Community Centre, Couva, on Saturday 18 July, 2026 for a day of storytelling, spoken word, music and art, readings, discussions, writing workshops and more, for readers and writers of all ages.

Building on our Bocas Central, South, and Tobago festivals of past years, we are excited to connect with even more reading and writing communities across T&T.

Keep an eye on this space for details or sign up for our newsletter to be the first to receive updates: https://newsletter.bocaslitfest.com/

04/06/2026

“At the festival welcome, the rafters of Old Fire Station are strung up with festive, technicoloured bunting. The buzzing crowd overflows from the seats to the door as Nicholas Laughlin stands on the podium, delivering his opening remarks. ‘As you may know, our 2026 festival theme is All Together Now. It proclaims our belief that literature in all its forms is about community.’

“This theme, printed on the festival booklets, brochures and banners, becomes a good omen and a manner of foreshadowing for my experiences at the festival. When I am not attending workshops or seminars, my time is spent basking in the presence of like-minded people.

“On the shuttle from the Kapok to the Library, I meet Ayesha Gibson-Gill, a fellow Barbadian who works with the Frank Collymore Literary Endowment. We talk about the importance of cultural conservation in tones of urgency and enthusiasm. When I tell her about my research interest in the conservation of Diasporic Symbols, she asks, ‘Did you know that Adinkra symbols are embedded in wrought ironworks across the Caribbean?’

“And just like that, I find another strain of research to consider.

“This happens again and again throughout my experience at the festival. This kind of exchange and spontaneous collaborative thought. When speaking to Felesha, a festival volunteer, avid reader and a friend of a friend from back home, her eyes light up behind her glasses as she tells me, ‘There’s a book about the Ti Kai’s of Dominica that I might relate to your interest in symbols!’

“In the lobby of the Kapok, a guest of the festival, whom I had spoken to the day before, waves me over.

“ ‘I saw this article in the newspaper on the power of the symbol, and it reminded me of your research,’ he says while pointing to a picture on his phone.

“I come to see that the beauty of the Bocas lies not only in its invaluable offerings of writerly and scholarly events, but in the way it becomes an epicentre of the Anglophone Caribbean literary world. Here, like-minds across the region gather to be in community and coalesce thoughts, if only for a few blissful days.”

- Connor Harris, one of two Fresh Milk inaugural Bocas Lit Fest Scholarship awardees. Connor, alongside fellow Barbadian writer Cyndi Celeste, attended the 2026 edition of the festival in Trinidad and Tobago from 30 April to 3 May.

In her reflection, Connor shares frankly that festivals like Bocas shouldn’t be mistaken as utopias, but rather are the hard-earned result of collective efforts working uphill within a paradigm ever more hostile towards the humanities.

She quotes Marielle Forbes’ closing remarks: “In uncertainty, the arts continue to endure… Culture survives when the community chooses to stand together.”

Read Connor's full article here:
https://freshmilkbarbados.com/2026/06/03/reflections-from-bocas-lit-fest-2026-by-connor-harris/

Fresh Milk is pleased to share a reflection by one of our inaugural Bocas Lit Fest Scholarship awardees, Connor Harris, who alongside fellow Barbadian writer Cyndi Celeste attended the 2026 editio…

02/06/2026

Our Family Reading Circle is coming to Kelly Village! Join us for a morning of fun and interactive reading, featuring children’s book author and illustrator Oprah C. Francis!

📚 Sat 20 June, 2026
🕙 10 am to 12 noon
📍St David’s RC Primary School
🆓 Free and ideal for children 12 years & younger with a parent/guardian

Oprah C. Francis is the creative talent behind the children’s book series "The Adventures of Marvin the Mischievous Manicou" and an advocate for culturally-driven children’s literature.

She is also a corporate communicator and the holder of a Master’s Degree in Media, Communications and Public Relations and is actively working to foster a greater sense of cultural pride and appreciation for local content through fun and creative learning.

Hosted by the Bocas Lit Fest in collaboration with Let's Read, the Family Reading Circle is a read-aloud session that brings books alive for children, setting the foundation for a lifelong love of reading, and helping build crucial language, comprehension, and emotional skills.

Bring the little ones and share the news of our Family Reading Circle in Kelly Village!

02/06/2026

“Taboo is something that is banned on the grounds of morality or taste. But…whose morality…whose taste? Taboo is ‘don’t go there’; it’s ‘unacceptable’ to want or to do because it’s ‘a big risk’. But your favourite author is probably a risk taker, and the most powerful writing comes from confronting taboo — whatever that means to you.”

Sign up today for Bocas Academy's online masterclass 'Writing the Taboo' with Breanne Mc Ivor, award-winning author of ‘The God of Good Looks’, who will guide prose writers through the minefields of the unorthodox, controversial, and risque, to get to the engine room of creative expression itself.

🗓Saturday 27 June, 2026
🕐1.00-3.00 pm (AST)
🖥Online via Zoom
🎟TT$400
🔗https://academy.bocaslitfest.com/event/writing-the-taboo-with-breanne-mc-ivor/

✒️With a dynamic, multi-level curriculum of writing workshops and masterclasses, the Bocas Academy consolidates over a decade of experience in writer development, designed to nurture literary talent at every level.

📚Designed to develop writers in T&T and the Caribbean region, as well as the wider Caribbean diaspora, the Bocas Academy offers resources for writers at all levels, from beginners finding their voice to seasoned authors refining their craft — integrated into one cohesive platform.

01/06/2026

01/06/2026

Congratulations to Diana McCaulay! Her novel, A House for Ms Pauline, was announced today as the winner of the 2026 RSL Ondaatje Prize!

'To evoke the spirit of a place has been the animating intention of all my novels and stories.’

Judge Claire Armitstead called 'A House for Miss Pauline' "An evocative and powerful novel of belonging, with a fabulously eccentric protagonist, which complicates everything we assume about colonial history in all the right ways."

Jamaica born and raised, Diana McCaulay is an award-winning writer and environmental activist, and has written six published novels and numerous short stories and articles.

Photo of Diana McCaulay by Jeremy Francis

The Royal Society of Literature Dialogue Books

31/05/2026

Happening In June at The Writers Centre!

😾Studio Joli’s ‘Curiosity Killed the Cat’ murder mystery, Sat 06, 3 pm
🌮Date Night at the Cafe: Taco Date Night, Sat 12, 5-9pm
🍽 Sleepy Cat Cafe Brunch, Sun 14, 10am-2pm
🫖Paper Based Bookshop’s Tea and Readings, Sat 20, 5.30pm
🍽 Sleepy Cat Cafe Brunch, Sun 21, 10am-2pm
📚 Sleepy Cat Book Club, Caroline Mackenzie, Sat 27, 3-5 pm

📍Located at 14 Alcazar Street, St. Clair, The Writers Centre invites visitors to step into a world of stories, ideas, and inspiration.

Whether you come by to browse Caribbean literature at the independent Paper Based Bookshop, enjoy delicious drinks and treats at the cosy Sleepy Cat Cafe, or take part in a literary event, workshop, or book club, there’s always something happening.

Come for the books, stay for the community — all under one creative roof.

31/05/2026

Escaping a giant alien squid on the moon, hoodwinking a disgruntled ghost, winning a chutney championship, a scorpion pepper competition. These are some of the wild stories tumbling from the minds of our nation’s children and included in the Children’s Story and Colouring Book 10.

The story and colouring book is the latest anthology in the collection of stories created by children during the Bocas Children’s Storytelling Caravan in 2024. Twenty original stories were created by children from Cedros, Matura, Salybia, Deba, Princess Town, Couva, Port of Spain, Tobago, Moruga, and Arima, as part of the Bocas Lit Fest’s long-standing tradition of inspiring and developing new generations of readers and writers.

“A fundamental feature of the children’s programme is to actively foster and promote a new generation of readers and writers,” explains Melvina Hazard, Children’s Programme Manager, Bocas Lit Fest. “It’s one thing to entertain and inspire children about the magic and power of reading and listening to stories. We know reading encourages empathy, critical thinking, creativity and elevated social and cognitive skills. By going further to teach and work with children to create their own stories, we are helping to build a new catalogue of stories by children for children.”

The book was officially launched during the Bocas Lit Fest’s annual festival on Saturday 2 May, 2026, at NALIS’ Children’s Library, and is available for purchase at Paper Based Bookshop, 14 Alcazar Street, for TT$100. Proceeds from the sale of the book will support Bocas’ year-round programming for children.

Read more in the Trinidad Express Newspapers at https://trinidadexpress.com/features/local/bocas-children-s-storytelling-caravan-book-10-out-now/article_e960253a-a531-4979-9ccc-1c22ef6d09f3.html

30/05/2026

Today, as we mark the 181st anniversary of Indian Arrival Day in T&T, we invite you to view our 2020 panel discussion, “How we remember: reflections on the 175th anniversary of Indian Arrival Day in Trinidad and Tobago”.

Exploring how indentureship and the Indo-Caribbean experience have been documented and imagined in our contemporary literature, writers Andre Bagoo, Gaiutra D. Bahadur, and Gabrielle Hosein, along with publisher Jeremy Poynting of Peepal Tree Press, share their perspectives through readings and conversation, hosted by Shivanee N. Ramlochan and Nicholas Laughlin.

The arrival of 227 indentured Indian immigrants aboard the Fatal Ra...

28/05/2026

You know in your heart you’re a serious scribe — have your poem drafts gotten the message?

Early-bird special for Bocas Academy's workshop 'The Fine Line' ends 31 May!

Under the meticulous guidance of editor, poet, and author of ‘The Proper Care of Knives’ Anu Lakhan, learn how to approach editing your own poetry, with an eye to drafting, redrafting, and the business of precision: how to say exactly what the poem requires, at the level of each single line. Get your fine-nibbed pens ready!

🗓Saturday 22 August, 2026
🕐1.00-3.00 pm (AST)
🖥Online via Zoom
🎟TT$400 (Early-bird rate TT$350 until 31 May)

🔗https://academy.bocaslitfest.com/event/the-fine-line-an-introduction-to-poetry-editing-with-anu-lakhan/

✒️With a dynamic, multi-level curriculum of writing workshops and masterclasses, the Bocas Academy consolidates over a decade of experience in writer development, designed to nurture literary talent at every level.

📚Designed to develop writers in T&T and the Caribbean region, as well as the wider Caribbean diaspora, the Bocas Academy offers resources for writers at all levels, from beginners finding their voice to seasoned authors refining their craft — integrated into one cohesive platform.