Writ­ing For Our Lives, a new an­thol­o­gy com­mis­sioned by The Crop­per Foun­da­tion and pub­lished by Peekash Press, will make its in­ter­na­tion­al de­but at this year’s Bo­cas Lit Fest on May 3 at the Old Fire Sta­tion in Port-of-Spain.

The ti­tle speaks to the ur­gent re­al­i­ties ex­plored in its pages—a di­verse col­lec­tion of fic­tion, cre­ative non-fic­tion, and po­et­ry that con­fronts the glob­al cli­mate cri­sis and its dev­as­tat­ing risks to Caribbean na­tions.

Co-edit­ed by Ja­maican nov­el­ist and en­vi­ron­men­tal­ist Di­ana Mc­Caulay and Trinida­di­an po­et and es­say­ist Shiv­a­nee Ram­lochan, Writ­ing For Our Lives fea­tures the work of 18 con­trib­u­tors from eight Caribbean ter­ri­to­ries: Bar­ba­dos, Bermu­da, the British Vir­gin Is­lands, Guyana, Ja­maica, St Maarten, The Ba­hamas, and T&T.

The col­lec­tion show­cas­es a dy­nam­ic mix of voic­es—from prizewin­ning au­thors with sev­er­al pub­lished works to emerg­ing writ­ers for whom this an­thol­o­gy marks one of their first print pub­li­ca­tions.

Each con­trib­u­tor’s piece ad­dress­es the ur­gent need for cli­mate jus­tice, through works that range from the dystopi­an to the folk­loric, set in the Caribbean’s past, present, and fu­ture.

Cherisse Braith­waite-Joseph, CEO of The Crop­per Foun­da­tion, out­lined the vi­sion for the an­thol­o­gy as all-en­com­pass­ing. “This col­lec­tion is re­al­ly about help­ing peo­ple see and feel the hu­man sto­ries be­hind cli­mate change. We want to move the dis­cus­sion be­yond the sci­ence and sta­tis­tics to show the un­equal im­pacts of this cri­sis and the de­ci­sions made to ad­dress it on those that may be eas­i­ly over­looked.”

Asked to iden­ti­fy the in­tend­ed au­di­ence for the book, Braith­waite-Joseph said, “We want pol­i­cy­mak­ers, stu­dents, and teach­ers alike to ap­pre­ci­ate not just how the cli­mate cri­sis af­fects our economies and liveli­hoods, but how the im­pacts con­nect to in­creased health risks, food short­ages, dis­place­ment, and anx­i­ety.”

On May 3, co-ed­i­tors Mc­Caulay and Ram­lochan will in­tro­duce the an­thol­o­gy, and in­vite read­ings from a re­gion­al cross-sec­tion of its con­trib­u­tors: Randy Ablack (T&T), Bren­don Alek­seii (T&T), Kevin Jared Ho­sein (T&T), El­ton John­son (Ja­maica), Drey­lan John­son (Guyana), and Si­mone Leid (T&T).

Copies of the book will be avail­able for pur­chase from fes­ti­val book­sellers. An ebook ver­sion will al­so be re­leased.

Writ­ing For Our Lives was made pos­si­ble through the fi­nan­cial sup­port of Open So­ci­ety Foun­da­tions. The an­thol­o­gy is ded­i­cat­ed to the late Fun­so Aiye­ji­na, who for over two decades co-fa­cil­i­tat­ed, along­side Mer­le Hodge, The Crop­per Foun­da­tion’s res­i­den­tial work­shops that trained so many lead­ing con­tem­po­rary Caribbean writ­ers.

Ac­cord­ing to a re­lease, “Like al­most all ses­sions at the 2025 Bo­cas Lit Fest, the event is free and open to all.”

With the theme “Al­ways Com­ing Home”, the fes­ti­val—mark­ing its mile­stone 15th year—in­cludes prizewin­ning writ­ers, in­clud­ing Mar­lon James, Myr­i­am J A Chancy, and Lawrence Scott, along­side emerg­ing tal­ents, such as Yesha Townsend, Les­ley-Ann Wan­liss, and oth­ers.

The full fes­ti­val pro­gramme is on­line at bo­caslit­fest.com with fre­quent up­dates on so­cial me­dia (@bo­caslit­fest on Face­book, In­sta­gram, and X).

OCM, First Cit­i­zens, the JB Fer­nan­des Memo­r­i­al Trust, and the Min­istry of Tourism, Cul­ture and the Arts are main spon­sors of the 2025 Bo­cas Lit Fest; the British Coun­cil, the Wind­ham-Camp­bell Prizes, Mur­phy Clarke, the Massy Foun­da­tion, and The UWI are spon­sors.

Date: Sat­ur­day May 3, 3.30–4.30 pm

Venue: Old Fire Sta­tion

• Free and open to all

• In part­ner­ship with The Crop­per Foun­da­tion