This week, the book­shelf spot­lights a writer who re­mains anony­mous. She writes as if she’s speak­ing with dis­arm­ing hon­esty, and her con­nec­tion with women read­ers is in­stant. Her books have sold over 30 mil­lion copies world­wide and have been trans­lat­ed in­to more than 40 lan­guages.

At just eight years old, Amayah Wal­lace-Aniebonam is al­ready mak­ing a mark in chil­dren’s lit­er­a­ture. With en­cour­age­ment from her moth­er, Al­isha Wal­lace, what be­gan as a sim­ple school as­sign­ment has evolved in­to her de­but book, The Quest for the Gold­en Di­a­mond, a sto­ry filled with ad­ven­ture, friend­ship, and courage which takes young read­ers on an ex­cit­ing ad­ven­ture through the Night­mare Jun­gle.

“My moth­er and I have both been recog­nised by MI­PAD (Most In­flu­en­tial Peo­ple of African De­scent) in sup­port of the Unit­ed Na­tions’ Decade Ded­i­cat­ed to Peo­ple of African De­scent.We were both recog­nised for two com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent cat­e­gories. This is the first time a moth­er and daugh­ter have both been recog­nised by MI­PAD and thus marks a mo­men­tous oc­ca­sion.

Ser­vice and giv­ing have al­ways been a piv­otal part of Deb­o­rah de Rosia’s life. Be­ing ho­n­oured with the In­spi­ra­tional Cham­pi­on of Women Award by the IWFTT this month of Sep­tem­ber comes af­ter decades of com­mu­ni­ty ser­vice to oth­ers, and she is in­sis­tent that the award should not be on­ly hers but a trib­ute to all those who have giv­en their time and tal­ent to the Eter­nal Light Com­mu­ni­ty.

A 45-year ca­reer spent in the spot­light on stage has not dulled Ce­cil­ia Salazar’s shine in the slight­est.

Ni­ki Ro­drigues, nee Miller, grew up with a sin­gle moth­er, a younger sis­ter, and her grand­moth­er. Now, many years lat­er, Ro­drigues has a com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent fam­i­ly struc­ture as the moth­er of eight, a proud wife, and al­so a busi­ness own­er/en­tre­pre­neur. Be­tween man­ag­ing her house­hold, grow­ing her mul­ti­ple busi­ness­es, and home­school­ing her chil­dren, she is an ex­tra­or­di­nary woman.

In­de­pen­dence Day 2024 in T&T will be su­per­charged this year with love! This is the promise of Kaveesh The Band, who has part­nered with Sri Dat­ta­treya Yo­ga Cen­tre & SM Group In­ter­na­tion­al and is ex­cit­ed and grate­ful to present their sig­na­ture spir­i­tu­al event en­ti­tled HARI FEST II 2024—a spir­i­tu­al mu­sic fes­ti­val of love.

Lisa Allen-Agos­ti­ni, known for her genre-de­fy­ing nar­ra­tives, ven­tures in­to his­tor­i­cal crime fic­tion with her lat­est work, Death in the Dry Riv­er (1000Volt Press, Au­gust 2024).

The In­ter­na­tion­al Women’s Fo­rum of T&T (IWFTT) has se­lect­ed four out­stand­ing, pi­o­neer­ing women in T&T to ho­n­our at its third an­nu­al In­spi­ra­tional Women Awards Gala in Sep­tem­ber 2024.

The writer re­cent­ly ac­com­pa­nied a group of 35 trav­ellers on a vis­it to the Yu­catan Penin­su­la in Mex­i­co.

Fight­ing demons sent straight from hell, the hor­ror au­thor, screen­play writer, and child ac­tivist, San­dra Car­val­ho, gives the pro­tag­o­nists of her nov­el, The Guardians, a deep­er reach in­to the lives of read­ers and fans of the hor­ror genre.

“I nev­er want­ed to be just one thing in my life. Nev­er!” says Shen­da Mur­ray, who prides her­self as a mul­ti­po­ten­tialite ever since she was a young girl.