submissions + eligibility

Caroline Mackenzie is a Trinidadian writer whose short fiction has appeared in literary publications around the world. In 2017 she was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Short Story Prize, and her debut novel will be published in Spring 2020. She currently lives in Trinidad with her husband and son, where she continues to work as a technical translator alongside her fiction writing.

Ira Mathur is an Indian born multi media journalist living in Trinidad. A Trinidad Guardian columnist  she is the recipient of nine awards for excellence in journalism. She was shortlisted for the 2013 and 2014 Hollick Arvon Prize. In 2018 Mathur was shortlisted for the Bridport Short Story Prize, and the Lorian Hemmingway ( short story) Prize. An excerpt from her novel in progress is anthologized in Thicker Than Water, Peekash Press, 2018.

Sassy Ross is a Saint Lucian-American poet. Her work has appeared in Prairie Schooner, The Caribbean Review of Books, sx salon, Caribbean Beat, Poetry International and other journals, as well as the anthology, Coming Up Hot: Eight New Poets from the Caribbean. A graduate of New York University's MFA Program, she lives in New York City.

Marcia Douglas is the author of the novels, The Marvellous Equations of the Dread, Madam Fate and Notes from a Writer's Book of Cures and Spells as well as a poetry collection, Electricity Comes to Cocoa Bottom. Her awards include a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, and a U.K. Poetry Book Society Recommendation.  The Marvellous Equations of the Dread was long-listed for a 2016 Republic of Consciousness Prize and a 2017 OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature.  Marcia is an Associate Professor at the University of Colorado, Boulder.

Brenda Flanagan is a winner of the Hopwood Award at The University of Michigan for novel, short fiction and drama. Her books, You Alone Are Dancing, Allah in the Islands, and In Praise of Island Women & Other Crimes are available from Amazon. Her story, To Dance with My Brother received the 2018 Canute Broadhurst Prize from The Caribbean Writer. Flanagan has a PhD from The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

Alecia McKenzie is a Jamaican writer. Her first book Satellite City and her novel Sweetheart have both won Commonwealth literary awards, and she was shortlisted for the 2015 Commonwealth Short Story Prize. Her work has been translated into French, Dutch, Italian, Icelandic, Chinese and other languages, and has appeared in magazines and anthologies including Stories from Blue Latitudes, Global Tales, The Penguin Book of Caribbean Short Stories and The Oxford Book of Caribbean Short Stories.

Trinidadian poet Andre Bagoo’s work has appeared in journals such as Boston Review, Cincinnati Review, St Petersburg Review, and The Poetry Review. His books include Trick Vessels (Shearsman, 2012), BURN (Shearsman, 2015), Pitch Lake (Peepal Tree, 2017), and a book-length visual poem The City of Dreadful Night (Prote(s)xt, 2018). He was awarded The Charlotte and Isidor Paiewonsky Prize in 2017. Follow him on twitter @pleasureblog 

Ishion Hutchinson was born in Port Antonio, Jamaica. He is the author of Far District and House of Lords and Commons. He teaches in the graduate writing program at Cornell University. 

Anthony Kellman is a Barbadian poet, novelist and musician. He’s published five books of poetry including Limestone, Barbados’s first published epic poem. His third novel, Tracing Jaja, won the 2018 Casa de las Americas Literary Award for Anglophone Caribbean Literature. He’s a recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts poetry fellowship and Barbados’s Prime Minister's award. His writing has appeared in international literary periodicals and anthologies, and his music featured on National Public Radio (USA), the BBC, and on Caribbean radio. He edited the first full-length U.S. anthology of English-language Caribbean poetry, Crossing Water and is the originator of the Barbados poetic form Tuk Verse.