In cel­e­bra­tion of Ca­lyp­so His­to­ry Month, the Bo­cas Lit Fest host­ed an en­gag­ing con­ver­sa­tion with “Women in Kaiso” pro­duc­er Ju­dith Laird and so­ca artiste-song­writer Na­dia Bat­son at The Writ­ers Cen­tre, high­light­ing the deep con­nec­tions be­tween sto­ry­telling, mu­sic, and film in T&T’s cre­ative land­scape.

The event, part of Bo­cas’ Bring Your Own Book and Bev­er­age (BY­OBB) se­ries, in­vit­ed read­ers, writ­ers, and cre­atives to ex­plore how lit­er­a­ture and lived ex­pe­ri­ence shape artis­tic ex­pres­sion. In an in­ti­mate set­ting, Laird and Bat­son re­flect­ed on how the rhythms and nar­ra­tives of kaiso con­tin­ue to in­spire new forms of sto­ry­telling across gen­res.

Laird, a writer and film­mak­er, dis­cussed her work cap­tur­ing women’s voic­es in ca­lyp­so, while Bat­son shared her per­spec­tive on song­writ­ing as a form of nar­ra­tive art—where melody, emo­tion, and mes­sage in­ter­twine.

To­geth­er, they un­der­scored the im­por­tance of pre­serv­ing women’s con­tri­bu­tions to kaiso and the wider Caribbean cul­tur­al sto­ry.

The BY­OBB se­ries fos­ters open di­a­logue about how cre­ativ­i­ty fu­els com­mu­ni­ty, of­fer­ing a space to share ex­pe­ri­ences, spark con­ver­sa­tion, and keep the na­tion’s col­lec­tive nar­ra­tive alive.