News from Authors

Newsday: Escaping the pandemic (with The Mermaid of Black Conch)

"It wasn't by accident that The Mermaid of Black Conch swam her way into readers’ hearts during this pandemic. The Peepal Tree Press publication written by Monique Roffey garnered international fame and became one of the most successful Caribbean books of the pandemic year because it provided romance and an exotic escape from covid19 worries," writes Debbie Jacob for Newsday.

Read the article in full.

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Poetry Today: Shara McCallum

Shara McCallum and Claudia Castro Luna are the two poets interviewed this month at the Kenyon Review. In the interview with Ruben Quesada, Shara goes into wonderful detail about poetry, reading and writing.

On the topic of poetry, Shara is generous, saying, 'I prefer the idea that poetry has as many purposes as there are readers and writers than the idea that poetry has any singular role or purpose.' She feels that while poetry 'can be part of the structure of our communal lives', that isn't often the case.

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Fortune with black gold...a writer’s explosive love letter to Trinidad

In 'Fortune with black gold...a writer’s explosive love letter to Trinidad', Ira Mathur interviews Amanda Smyth for the T&T Guardian.

This is a love letter to Trinidad. I come and go and not belong. Sitting in a house in Leamington, Trinidad’s landscape symbolises what I love and the connection I have to Trinidad. I saw the landscape as another character. The land is a canvas on which their longings play and are mirrored back to them. The characters see it differently, but the earth couldn't care less.

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