The NGC Bo­cas Lit Fest, T&T's an­nu­al fes­ti­val of words, sto­ries and ideas, is as much about nur­tur­ing tal­ent and build­ing ca­pac­i­ty across the book in­dus­try as it is about cel­e­brat­ing the high­est lev­els of lit­er­ary achieve­ment.

On April 25, the NGC Bo­cas Lit Fest gets un­der­way with Writ­ers First: a se­ries of free ses­sions for bud­ding and self-pub­lished au­thors on cru­cial as­pects of the book busi­ness.

For the third con­sec­u­tive year, this sem­i­nar will take place in part­ner­ship with the an­nu­al First-Time Au­thors ini­tia­tive host­ed by the Na­tion­al Li­brary In­for­ma­tion Sys­tems Au­thor­i­ty (Nalis) to recog­nise lo­cal writ­ers on their de­but pub­li­ca­tions.

“It's re­mark­able how this eco-sys­tem works: the first-time au­thors feed di­rect­ly in­to this sem­i­nar that aims to equip writ­ers with tools to nav­i­gate the chal­lenges of pub­lish­ing and mar­ket­ing. Some­times writ­ing is the easy part, the re­al work is of­ten to get folks read­ing,” says founder/di­rec­tor of the NGC Bo­cas Lit Fest, Ma­ri­na Sa­landy-Brown.

This year's pro­gramme in­volves three pre­sen­ta­tions from 1 to 4 pm in the Nalis AV Room—all free and open to the pub­lic.

Chil­dren and Ed­u­ca­tion Pro­gramme Di­rec­tor at the Ed­in­burgh In­ter­na­tion­al Book Fes­ti­val, Janet Smyth will fo­cus on break­ing in­to the in­ter­na­tion­al chil­dren's book mar­ket. UWI li­brar­i­an Lor­raine Nero and schol­ar Al­i­son Don­nell to­geth­er pick up on one of the fes­ti­val's big ideas—the im­por­tance of archiv­ing, par­tic­u­lar­ly for bud­ding writ­ers. Self-pub­lish­ing con­sul­tant Corine La­Font will share in­sights in­to be­com­ing an Ama­zon best­seller.

Iden­ti­fy­ing and de­vel­op­ing emerg­ing Caribbean tal­ent has been in­te­gral to Bo­cas' growth and ex­pan­sion over the past eight years of the fes­ti­val's ex­is­tence.

Fes­ti­val ti­tle spon­sor is the Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny, lead spon­sor is First Cit­i­zens, main spon­sors are the Min­istry of Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment, Cul­ture and the Arts and One Caribbean Me­dia. Massy Foun­da­tion and UWI are al­so spon­sors.