Brooklyn Caribbean Literary Festival (BCLF)

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Brooklyn Caribbean Literary Festival Inc

The Brooklyn Caribbean Literary Festival celebrates Caribbean storytelling, fostering dialogue and creativity among artists. It aims to reshape narratives of belonging and hope, connecting global diasporas through shared acts of literary expression.

Meet us at Sugar&rsquo;D Restaurant on Fri 23 October to celebrate calypso and folkore in story! Spirit Lash is a tribute to Caribbean spirits - whether that&rsquo;s rum (as in the drinks you&rsquo;ll be sipping) or a jumbie story like the one your granny used to tell you. Across 4 excerpts and 4 themed cocktails, we&rsquo;ll recall with wonder the oral stories of our rich supernatural heritage and the calypsonians who also carried them in song. Is Books &amp; Bacchanal for bad johns, douens, rolling calf, ole higue and company! Live dramatised readings by Rachel Oneika Phillips

Spirit Lash

The keynote event of One Hand Don&rsquo;t Clap - Caribbean Worlds, Writing Towards the Future, the 8th annual Brooklyn Caribbean Literary Festival, opens with a conversation between Sister Nancy, whose voice shaped the dancehall sonic canon, and Tanya Batson-Savage, Jamaican publisher and editor. Together they trace the architecture of artistic sovereignty and the particular power of the female deejay in establishing Jamaican dancehall as a global force. The conversation runs from 6:30 to 7:30 PM. Please be seated by 6:15 PM. The evening will continue from 7:30 PM with an exclusive reception with food and drink: dishes from Tanty Darlene&rsquo;s Kitchen and Sugar&rsquo;D restaurant, Ten to One Rum cocktails, in the gallery space of our partners at MoCADA.&nbsp;

One Hand Don’t Clap - VIP Reception

One Hand Don&rsquo;t Clap will explore how storytelling is a shared act of world-making, that repairs memory, reimagines belonging, and insists on futures shaped through relation rather than isolation across islands, mainland territories, and global diasporas. In these shared acts of creation, Caribbean artists write forward, crafting futures grounded in hope, responsibility, reciprocity and possibility. Their work positions Caribbean storytelling as a collective force shaping our global moment. Rooted in intertwined histories of displacement and cultural invention, the festival illuminates writers and artists whose work transforms rupture into narrative power and shared vision. Through dialogue, performance, and literary exchange, Caribbean worlds emerge as generative sites from which new futures are being written rather than peripheral influences whose fates are decided for them.

Brooklyn Caribbean Literary Festival 2026 - Press Pass

One Hand Don't Clap - Brooklyn Caribbean Literary Festival 2026

This conversation brings together African-American and Caribbean writers to examine the long, complicated history of relations between their communities; a history marked by solidarity, and more interestingly, by tension, exchange, and mutual transformation. From Marcus Garvey&rsquo;s organizing in the United States to the gains secured through the Civil Rights Movement that reshaped the possibilities of migration for the global majority, the histories of African-American and Caribbean peoples are inseparable. Through fiction and lived experience, these writers explore how narratives of rivalry obscure deeper truths of dependence, inheritance, and shared futures. Under the guiding principle of &quot;One Hand Don&rsquo;t Clap,&quot; the panel invites us to consider what becomes possible when these histories are read in relation rather than in isolation, which has been the long-established tendency.

Bound Together - Volunteer Pass

Enter the BCLF Swag Bag Raffle and rep our merch. Each ticket is a chance to win a curated bundle of BCLF merch, a blind book and keepsakes. Your entry supports the Brooklyn Caribbean Literary Festival&rsquo;s work of centering writers, artists, and thinkers whose stories build futures shaped through relation.

BCLF Swag Bag Raffle

Join us as we take a moment to announce the winners of the 2026 BCLF Short Fiction Story Contest whose stories exemplified this year&rsquo;s prompt, &#39;What Cannot Be Done Alone&#39; built under the festival&#39;s guiding theme One Hand Don&rsquo;t Clap.&nbsp; Including reflections and insights from Roberto Carlos Garcia, Carol Mitchell and Khari Dawkins, representatives of the 2026 judging panel, this event celebrates both the winners of the 2026 Elizabeth Nunez Award for Writers in the Caribbean and the Elizabeth Nunez Caribbean-American Writer&rsquo;s Prize and the other rising luminaries of Caribbean fiction that our contest heralds.

BCLF 2026 Short Fiction Award Ceremony

This Giving Tuesday, we invite you to stand with Brooklyn Caribbean Literary Festival&nbsp;in our ongoing quest to center Caribbean and diasporic writers, artists, and thinkers in a shared space of story and reflection. Your gift sustains programs that illuminate Caribbean storytelling, support literary exchange and performance, create a formal archive the stories that have traditionally been passed down orally and champion Caribbean voices as they transform histories of rupture into narrative power and shared futures.&nbsp; Want to help all year long? Choose a monthly gift. Thank you for being part of our community. With advance thanks&nbsp;and gratitude for your generosity, BCLF Team🖤

This Giving Tuesday, we invite you to stand with Brooklyn Caribbean Literary Festival in our ongoing quest to center Caribbean and diasporic writers, artists, and thinkers in a shared space of story and reflection.Your gift sustains programs that illuminate Caribbean storytelling, support literary exchange and performance, create a formal archive the stories that have traditionally been passed down orally and champion Caribbean voices as they transform histories of rupture into narrative power and shared futures. Want to help all year long? Choose a monthly gift.Thank you for being part of our community.With advance thanks and gratitude for your generosity,BCLF Team🖤

Giving Tuesday: support Brooklyn Caribbean Literary Festival Inc storytelling

By popular demand, the Pastelle-Making Party is back! Join us once again for an afternoon of pastelle making with our dear friend and longtime festival partner, Tanty Darlene. Come ready to roll, fold, taste, and talk with us as we honour the rituals that make a Caribbean Christmas feel like home.

Brooklyn Caribbean Literary Festival Inc

Brooklyn Caribbean Literary Festival Inc

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Pastelle-Making Party

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Writing your Dangerously Human Voice: The Self in the Sentence Workshop

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Writing your Dangerously Human Voice: The Self in the Sentence Workshop

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Giving Tuesday: support Brooklyn Caribbean Literary Festival Inc storytelling

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Upcoming events

Events

Get your tickets

Pastelle-Making Party

Get your tickets

Writing your Dangerously Human Voice: The Self in the Sentence Workshop

Get your tickets

Writing your Dangerously Human Voice: The Self in the Sentence Workshop

More ways to support us

Donate now

Giving Tuesday: support Brooklyn Caribbean Literary Festival Inc storytelling

Powered by

Brooklyn Caribbean Literary Festival Inc