A wind of change is blow­ing, and the NGC Bo­cas Lit Fest’s pop­u­lar au­thor in­ter­view se­ries Bios & Book­marks start­ed ex­plor­ing the theme when the newest sea­son opened on March 10.

Ti­tled “A Change is Gonna Come”—af­ter US singer Sam Cooke’s 1964 clas­sic, an un­of­fi­cial an­them of the Civ­il Rights Move­ment—the en­gag­ing six-episode lead-up to the 2022 NGC Bo­cas Lit Fest will show­case re­cent books by Caribbean and di­as­po­ra au­thors.

Through their works of po­et­ry, fic­tion, and non-fic­tion, the writ­ers in­vite au­di­ences to ex­plore ideas of change—from in­di­vid­ual to col­lec­tive, cul­tur­al to po­lit­i­cal—ex­am­in­ing forces that im­pact on hu­man re­la­tion­ships and ex­pe­ri­ence, and are im­per­a­tive to build­ing a bet­ter world.

Ac­cord­ing to a re­lease, "Bios & Book­marks high­lights the time­ly theme amid a pan­dem­ic that has re­it­er­at­ed change as a ver­i­ta­ble con­stant in life, and as we ob­serve sober­ing events play out on the world stage."

Episodes will air on con­sec­u­tive Thurs­day from 6 pm un­til April 14, via Face­book and YouTube. Each Bios & Book­marks episode of­fers view­ers the op­por­tu­ni­ty to hear writ­ers read from and dis­cuss their books, and in­ter­act with au­thors via ques­tions and com­ments.

On March 10, Trinida­di­an-Scot­tish writer Vah­ni Capildeo took cen­tre stage to dis­cuss her new book Like a Tree, Walk­ing. The 2021 Po­et­ry Book So­ci­ety Win­ter Choice sounds a pow­er­ful eco­log­i­cal mes­sage, and promis­es to en­thral.

Artist, writer, and schol­ar Andil Go­sine, who pon­ders hu­man­ism and queer the­o­ry in un­der­stand­ing queer de­sire in the Caribbean in his 2021 of­fer­ing Na­ture’s Wild: Love, Sex, and Law in the Caribbean, will make for a thought-pro­vok­ing guest on March 17.

And when Puer­to Ri­can writer Xavier Navar­ro Aquino is fea­tured on April 7, he will launch view­ers in­to a riv­et­ing strug­gle for sur­vival through his de­but nov­el, Velo­rio, as six sur­vivors en­counter a stark re­al­i­ty in the af­ter­math of Hur­ri­cane Maria.

Oth­er au­thors lined up for this Bios & Book­marks sea­son in­clude Ja­maicans Kei Miller and Mon­i­ca Minott, both of them longlist­ed for the 2022 OCM Bo­cas Prize.

Bios & Book­marks was launched by the NGC Bo­cas Lit Fest in April 2020, in the ear­ly phase of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic. Six sea­sons have aired since then. Sea­son sev­en of­fers a the­mat­ic pre­view of the up­com­ing 2022 NGC Bo­cas Lit Fest. The full fes­ti­val pro­gramme will be launched lat­er this month.

NGC is the ti­tle spon­sor of the NGC Bo­cas Lit Fest, OCM and First Cit­i­zens are main spon­sors, and Massy Foun­da­tion and UWI are spon­sors. The fes­ti­val runs from April 28 to May 1, 2022.

For more in­for­ma­tion on on­go­ing pro­gram­ming, vis­it www.bo­caslit­fest.com