Class is in session. Nurturing Caribbean words, stories and ideas, the Bocas Academy offers diverse and structured curriculum is designed to nurture and grow writers of all skills and levels of experience.
Budding writers will benefit from a workshop by Debbie Jacob; a Masterclass by Brandon O’Brien and Performance Workshop by Patti-Anne Ali and Nickolai Salcedo.
Saturday 27 September – Workshop: Writing from the Archive, with Debbie Jacob
Yellowing photographs. Hand-drawn family trees. Diaries filled with revelations from a generation ago. The personal past can be a treasure trove of rich creative material for a writer, but how do you handle documents within your own personal family history? What are the ethical and logistical ramifications of drawing on the archives of people you know and to whom you’re related? In this immersive, information-packed workshop with award-winning journalist Debbie Jacob, you’ll receive the tools to tackle the past through your writing projects in any genre. Jacob will also cover techniques and approaches for engaging with official archival material in the public domain, such as libraries, research centres, and databases.
Format: Virtually, Via Zoom (International Participants Welcome)
Register at https://islandetickets.com/event/Writing-From-the-Archive
Saturday 4 & 8 October – Masterclass: Reimagining The Future Through Speculative Writing, with Brandon O’Brien
Science fiction and fantasy is the realm of envisioning the multiple ways our world could be radically different: Papa Bois fighting back against environmental collapse, the ghosts of our ancestors rising out of the cracks in our plantation architecture, the walls of a solarpunk future defending us from uncertain neocolonial threats, and more. Writing in this genre gifts us the uncanny ability to project the deep concerns of the present into clarion calls toward future revolutions.
Whether you’re penning an epic long-form poem about a soucouyant, or drafting a dystopian novel set in downtown Port of Spain in the year 3000, you’ll receive writing prompts, guided exercises and intuitive feedback designed to make your work soar.
Join a two-part interactive masterclass with Poet Laureate of the 2025 World Science Fiction Convention, Brandon O’Brien, where you will unlock your own capacity to examine our past, expose our present, and explore our multiple futures through speculative fiction and poetry.
Format: Virtually, Via Zoom (International Participants Welcome)
Register at https://islandetickets.com/event/Reimagining-The-Future
Saturday 8 November – Performance Workshop: Page to Stage, with Patti-Anne Ali and Nickolai Salcedo
Bringing life to your carefully written, painstakingly edited pieces can be a daunting prospect. How do you stand before an expectant audience, meet their collective gaze, and deliver all the passion and certainty of your short stories, poems, and essays, if your voice is shaking and your knees are, too? Dispel your doubts in this day-long, hands-on workshop with veteran thespians Patti-Anne Ali and Nickolai Salcedo, who harness combined decades of stage, film, and performance experience. You’ll earn confidence and assurance in this important, overlooked aspect of a writer’s craft, regardless of your goal: command an audience, captivate a crowd, even prepare to vie for the next First Citizens National Poetry Slam!
