“What really thrills us is finding the new voices, the new writers,” declared Nicholas Laughlin, Programming Director of the Bocas Literary Fest. The occasion was The Word is Fresh, the festival’s third incursion into the Brooklyn Book Festival.

Guyanese writer Imam Baksh has taken home the first prize for the 2015 Burt Award for Caribbean Literature with his debut novel Children of the Spider.

Five poets hailing from Trinidad and Tobago, The Bahamas and the British Virgin Islands have been shortlisted for the 2015 Hollick Arvon Caribbean Writers Prize.

The shortlist of the 2015 OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean literature, featuring three writers in different stages of their careers has been announced. St.

Five manuscripts and one previously self-published novel have been selected as the finalists for the 2015 Burt Award for Caribbean Literature. The finalists who will be vying for up to CA$22,000 in prizes hail from Guyana, Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago.

The Bocas Lit Fest has doubled the grand prize for the 2015 Verses Poetry Slam, moving from a grand prize of TT$10,000 to TT$20,000 and therefore making it the Caribbean’s largest purse for a performance poetry competition. 

When the 4th installment of the Bocas Literary Festival gets underway on Wednesday April 23, dub poetry will get much of the spotlight, amongst the over 60 events that make up this year’s festival programme. 

Visions, ‘whatless’ boys and journeys will be contesting for the 2014 OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature as the shortlist for the coveted award was recently announced.

Six works have been shortlisted for the inaugural Burt Award for Caribbean Literature, an initiative of the Bocas Literary Festival geared toward stimulating growth in the desert that currently represents young adult novels in the Caribbean.