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PODCAST

BCLF Cocoa Pod

Brooklyn Caribbean Literary Festival

BCLF Cocoa Pod is a Caribbean storytelling experience in which writers of Caribbean heritage narrate their own stories. Each story is a seed, a nugget of an original work of fiction, rich with the rhythm, pitch and intonation of the one who wrote it. It is Caribbean storytelling told in the best way possible - in the voice of the place(s) that inspired it, imbued with the magic and accents of the region. BCLF Cocoa Pod is an original production of the Brooklyn Caribbean Literary Festival

arts books

All Episodes

15:51

Episode 47 | Getting Through - New & Selected poems...

BCLF Cocoa Pod ·

2025/09/12

We at the BCLF are proud to mark the release of “Getting Through: New and Selected Poems” by Mervyn Taylor, an extraordinary collection which gathers decades of lyrical mastery into one definitive volume, with this special episode of Cocoa Pod. Described as “a treasure trove… capturing the beauty and nuances of ordinary and extraordinary lives,” this poetry collection is a profound offering of Caribbean life, exploring themes of love, death, migration, aging, and grief with Taylor’s signatur...

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20:01

Episode 46 | Ever Since We Small - Celeste Mohammed...

BCLF Cocoa Pod ·

2025/09/01

Ever Since We Small – A Reading by Celeste Mohammed In this episode of BCLF Cocoa Pod, award-winning writer Celeste Mohammed reads from her second novel-in-stories, Ever Since We Small. Spanning generations of an Indo-Trinidadian family, the book follows the Gopauls from Jayanti’s journey as a girmitiya to the struggles of her descendants in modern Trinidad. Along the journey of these ten interconnected stories, the alchemy necessary to turn the Gopauls' inheritance of pain into a "generati...

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20:59

Episode 45 | Let Me Liberate You - Andie Davis...

BCLF Cocoa Pod ·

2025/08/20

This episode of BCLF Cocoa Pod was made possible with the support of funds from the Brooklyn Arts Council Local Arts Support Grant In Let Me Liberate You, a restless New York artist searching for purpose returns to Barbados and stumbles into the role of activist in this scathingly funny and brilliantly observed satire about privilege, family discord, and performative do-gooding. Let Me Liberate You was written by Andie Davis whose curiosity about other people’s lives inspired her love for lan...

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51:21

The God of Good Looks - Breanne McIvor (Trinidad &...

BCLF Cocoa Pod ·

2025/06/01

THE GOD OF GOOD LOOKS SUMMARY Combining the honesty, warmth, and humour of Queenie and a modern-day Bridget Jones’s Diary, award-winning writer Breanne Mc Ivor’s entertaining, transportive, and luminous debut novel follows a young Trinidadian woman finding her voice and a new kind of happy ending. Bianca Bridge has always dreamt of becoming a writer. But Trinidadian society can be unforgiving, and having an affair with a married government official is a sure-fire way to ruin your prospects. ...

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14:31

The Stranger Who Was Myself - Barbara Jenkins...

BCLF Cocoa Pod ·

2025/06/01

Barbara Jenkins writes about the experiences of a personal and family-centred life in Trinidad with great psychological acuteness, expanding on the personal with a deep awareness of the economic, social and cultural contexts of that experience. She writes about a childhood and youth located in the colonial era and an adult life that began at the very point of Trinidad’s independent nationhood, a life begun in considerable poverty in a colonial city going through rapid change. It involves a fa...

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17:30

River Sing Me Home - Eleanor Shearer (St. Lucia)

BCLF Cocoa Pod ·

2025/06/01

River Sing Me Home by Eleanor Shearer River Sing Me Home is a beautiful, page-turning and redemptive story of a mother’s gripping journey across the Caribbean to find her stolen children in the aftermath of slavery. Eleanor Shearer is a mixed-race writer and the granddaughter of Windrush generation immigrants. She splits her time between London and Ramsgate on the English coast so that she never has to go too long without seeing the sea. For her Master's degree in Politics at the Univ...

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10:17

A Million Aunties - Alecia McKenzie (Jamaica)

BCLF Cocoa Pod ·

2025/06/01

After a personal tragedy upends his world, American-born artist Chris travels to his mother's homeland in the Caribbean hoping to find some peace and tranquility. He plans to spend his time painting in solitude and coming to terms with his recent loss and his fractured relationship with his father. Instead, he discovers a new extended and complicated "family." The people he meets help him to heal, even as he supports them in unexpected ways. Told from different points of view, this is a compe...

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46:47

Episode 44 | An Unending Search by Ryan Bachoo...

BCLF Cocoa Pod ·

2025/05/30

"An Unending Search", by Ryan Bachoo is a novel set in South Trinidad in the late 1970s. It follows the story of Tar, a young man who dreams of escaping poverty and systemic racism. Inspired by Uncle Sundar, Tar's journey is one of hope and ambition, ultimately leading him to New York or London. The novel explores themes of identity, racism, and classism, painting a vivid picture of life in Trinidad during that era. To commemorate Indian Arrival celebrations in the month of May, this episode...

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14:54

Episode 44 | Picking Crabs in Negril - Diana McCaulay...

BCLF Cocoa Pod ·

2025/04/24

‘Picking Crabs in Negril’ by Diana McCaulay was awarded the 2025 BCLF Elizabeth Nunez Award for Writers in the Caribbean. This category was judged by Lasana Sekou, Cleyvis Natera and Richard Georges. “In it, a young girl witnesses what we come to understand is the dissolution of her parents’ marriage over a short trip to a beachside town. With keen insight and a sensibility that belies her age, the young protagonist aches for her mother’s pain, even as she is unable to understand it. W...

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20:39

Episode 43 | Trouble With The Dog - Stefan...

BCLF Cocoa Pod ·

2025/04/10

“The Trouble with the Dog” by Stefan Bindley-Taylor was awarded the 2024 BCLF Elizabeth Nunez Caribbean-American Writer’s Prize. This category was judged by Lauren Francis-Sharma, Desmond Hall and Wandeka Gayle. From the judges: ‘It is, at first, an exploration of a twisting familial relationship that embodies the hopes and expectations that live between perception and actuality. But with a sure hand, “The Trouble with the Dog” takes us through the perspectives of an uncle and his niece grap...

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21:25

Episode 42 | Ibis by Justin Haynes (Trinidad)

BCLF Cocoa Pod ·

2025/03/11

There is bad luck in New Felicity. The people of the small coastal village have taken in Milagros, an 11-year-old Venezuelan refugee, just as Trinidad’s government has begun cracking down on undocumented migrants—and now an American journalist has come to town asking questions. New Felicity’s superstitious fishermen fear the worst, certain they’ve brought bad luck on the village by killing a local witch who had herself murdered two villagers the year before. The town has been plagued since h...

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14:53

Episode 41 | A House for Miss Pauline by Diana...

BCLF Cocoa Pod ·

2025/02/19

Set in the heart of rural Jamaica, A HOUSE FOR MISS PAULINE (Algonquin Books), from award-winning author Diana McCaulay, tells the captivating, tender tale of Pauline Sinclair—a fiercely independent 99-year-old Jamaican woman who built her own home from the ruins of a plantation. As she faces her 100 th birthday, the old stones of her house begin to rattle and shift and call out mysterious messages, prompting her to reckon with long-buried secrets from her past. Lyrical, funny, eerie, and urg...

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16:01

Episode 40 | Casualties of Truth by Lauren...

BCLF Cocoa Pod ·

2025/02/12

Casualties of Truth, inspired by Francis-Sharma’s time at South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation’s Amnesty Hearings, is a gripping tale that explores themes of justice, revenge, race, parenting, and of course, the complications of friendship. It is a riveting literary novel with the sharp edges of a thriller about the abuses of history and the costs of revenge, set between Washington, D.C., and Johannesburg, South Africa. Her third offering, Casualties of Truth is published by Grove Atlant...

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6:52

A Christmas Origin Story: Anancy & Sorrel Told by...

BCLF Cocoa Pod ·

2024/12/19

Love sorrel at Christmas? Thank Anancy, that trickster spider, for the drink all West Indians eagerly enjoy during the festive Yuletide season!In this episode, Ms. Velma Pollard, revered Jamaican author and oral storyteller, shares the backstory of sorrel’s infamous association with Christmas in a folktale that originated in Jamaica. This telling is adapted from a story by Ms. Louise Bennet, Jamaican poet, folklorist, writer, educator whose pioneering work in performing her poems in Jama...

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15:32

Episode 38 | To Be A Cheetah - Joanne C. Hillhouse...

BCLF Cocoa Pod ·

2023/06/27

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16:49

Episode 37 | The Galaxy Game - Karen Lord (Barbados)

BCLF Cocoa Pod ·

2023/06/15

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15:38

Episode 36 | Nightmare Island - Shakirah Bourne...

BCLF Cocoa Pod ·

2023/06/07

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51:12

Always Lit Swap: The God of Good Looks: Readings &...

BCLF Cocoa Pod ·

2023/06/04

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8:01

Episode 34 | Wild Fires - Sophie Jai (Trinidad & Tobago)

BCLF Cocoa Pod ·

2023/05/31

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16:10

Episode 33 | The God of Good Looks - Breanne Mc Ivor...

BCLF Cocoa Pod ·

2023/05/17

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