By Alscess Lewis-Brown
Thank you [President George] for your support. We had another fantastic festival this year. The last guest left yesterday. We had close to 400 people participate in the festival this year. This festival reaffirms the VI Lit Fest status as a premier cultural and intellectual event in the Virgin Islands and the wider Caribbean for the past 12 years. This year’s theme, “Caribbean Literature: A Force of Representation” reflects the fact that we are also celebrating 40 years of The Caribbean Writer. Our specific celebration of that milestone will be done when Volume 40 is published later this year.
The 2026 festival brought together acclaimed authors, scholars from across the Caribbean diaspora and the world. It also brought together educators, students, and community members from across the Virgin Islands for four days of dynamic literary engagement, cultural celebration, and interdisciplinary dialogue. The authors spent the first day in all of the public schools engaging directly with both elementary and high school students. Children wrote their own stories, read the books of the various authors. Engaged in writing workshops and discussions with experts on artificial intelligence. This was a very robust pre-festival outreach. UVI students also participated by attending workshops and serving as volunteers to guide attendees to the various workshops and welcome guests.
VI LitFest 2026 showcased the transformative power of literature to reflect identity, preserve heritage, and inspire future generations. The authors were all so amazed at the beauty of the island, the brilliance and warmth of our people and our students.
Following tradition, at the opening reception, we honored the legacy of literary advocates and supporters Elisa McKay and Peter Roka, We thank you for taking time out of your very busy schedule to spend some time with us and to convey your very inspiring remarks. I loved the poem.
Always a hallmark of VI LitFest was its extensive workshop series, offering practical instruction across genres which included art, history, language arts through interactive storytelling, editing, children’s literature, publishing, and visual design. We hosted a diverse group of internationally acclaimed, New York Times Best Selling authors from within the Caribbean diaspora, the Middle East, and the United States. These sessions that these writers offered empowered aspiring writers and creatives with tangible skills while encouraging innovation and authenticity in Caribbean storytelling traditions. The festival also promoted cultural celebration and interdisciplinary expression. The comprehensive program spotlighted emerging and local voices through roundtables, book discussions, and open mic events, and ensured that Virgin Islands writers and artists were central to the narrative landscape. Friday we also streamed the festival to the St. Thomas campus of UVI. On Saturday morning, we offered everyone a full Caribbean breakfast. You name the Caribbean breakfast food; we had it on the table. To think that we started at 7:00 a.m. and the community still came for the breakfast that early and stayed for the panel discussions and workshops. We provided a brown bag lunch to fortify them as they spent the whole day on the St. Croix Campus of UVI.
In partnership with the Children’s Museum of St. Croix, on Sunday, from 11–4, we also hosted a Children’s Literary Festival. We brought both local and national children’s book authors together for this celebration. The children enjoyed their day meeting authors, drawing characters, writing their own stories, and listening to and reading stories. It was a super day. But we weren’t finished. That evening, we hosted our online “Writer’s Roogoodoo, where authors who published in The Caribbean Writer could share their work, and other authors could share excerpts from any other publication. We began that session with a moment of silence for the passing of griot, author and culture bearer, Dr. Richard Schrader is one of our most ardent supporters.
After that, we enjoyed a tribute to Jean Emanuel who was a beloved UVI professor — himself, a scholar, culture bearer from St. Croix who passed almost twenty years ago. Professor Adeyemi, one of Jean Emanuel’s friends who has preserved most of his scholarly papers, shared Jean Emanuel’s legacy with the gathering. As an outgrowth of the Writer’s Roogoodoo, there was an overwhelming request for us to host a monthly space for writers to share. We agreed that our first such event will be via zoom on Sunday, May 17th from 2 to 5. Writers in this circle, participated from England, France, Trinidad, Germany, Africa, Jamaica, St. Croix, St. Thomas and St. John. Our online event is a holdover from being forced to host the festival remotely while the world was struggling with COVID-19. We can’t forget the people who stayed with us even in those moments when we couldn’t fellowship in person. So, we have arranged for an internationally celebrated author to lead the group with a writing workshop.
Beyond literary discourse, the festival embraced Caribbean culture through music, dance, poetry, and visual arts. The St. Croix Educational Complex concert choir sang, Lady Mac, a mathematics teacher turned politician, brought down the house with her calypso and of course we always include up and coming young musicians. Signature events such as the Book Bacchanal and the Ekphrastic Poetry Competition were also a big draw– we stretched our reach from our Ekphrastic Poetry competition at Cane Roots Art Gallery in the heart of Christiansted on Saturday evening; the Book Bacchanal at Caribbean Museum Center fort the Arts on Friday evening where authors read from their work and mingled with the audience– listened to steel band music and danced with the Moko Jumbis while they ate a sumptuos Caribbean dinner.
We recently announced the winners of the Ekphrastic competition. We had two categories: high school, elementary school, college/ adult. This was a delightful experience. A mother entered the competition with four of her children. The battle was fierce. The place was packed.
We can’t forget that the Virgin Islands Fire and Emergency Management Services gifted us with a fireman who served as the driver of the van that property and procurement provided. Budget Rent a Car also provided us with a small mini van– so that our transportation to and from venues was always reliable and safe.
Our team, made up of mostly UVI employees and community volunteers worked like a well oiled machine to pull this off. I am so grateful to them for their collegiality and love.
On behalf of the USVI Lit Fest team, once again, thank you.
