British Virgin Islands Literary Arts Festival

Celebrating Caribbean Voices at the BVI Lit Fest 2025

Each November, the tranquil shores of the British Virgin Islands (BVI) play host to a vibrant celebration of literature, words, and community: the annual BVI Lit Fest (also called the BVI Literary Arts Festival). In 2025, the event celebrated its fifth edition, carrying the theme “Long Story Short.”

Launched in November 2021 as part of the Territory’s Culture and Tourism Month, BVI Lit Fest was created in partnership between the Department of Culture (British Virgin Islands) and the H. Lavity Stoutt Community College to put literature, creative expression and Caribbean voices centre-stage.

Launched in November 2021 as part of the Territory’s Culture and Tourism Month, the BVI Lit Fest was created in partnership between the Department of Culture (British Virgin Islands) and the H. Lavity Stoutt Community College to put literature, creative expression, and Caribbean voices centre stage. Over its five-year history, it has evolved into a platform that brings together local authors, regional Caribbean voices, and international writers for workshops, panel discussions, readings, signings, and book launches.

The festival sits squarely within the BVI’s Culture and Tourism Month (November) agenda aimed at celebrating the islands heritage and attracting literary-minded visitors. Beyond its core programming, the festival emphasises the BVI’s cultural identity: music and oral history, with panels such as “The Virgin Islands Soundtrack” examining how lyrics and storytelling merge when laying bare the intricacies of island life

Long Story Short

The 2025 edition ran from November 6–9 on Tortola, with pre-events including children’s programming on Virgin Gorda. Among the stand-out features this year were:

• A Writers’ Welcome Reception at Rhythm + Sands, Cane Garden Bay, where festival-goers mingled with visiting authors and enjoyed cultural performances.
• “Let’s Talk Lit” conversations featuring local and international literary voices discussing how storytelling evolves across form and medium.
• A Sunset Stories event where acclaimed authors shared readings and intimate conversations framed by sea and sky.
• Writing with Writers Workshops, covering choreopoetry, film, and publishing, plus a spoken-word showcase at Tortola Pier Park titled “Light a Fire” for bold new voices.
• The festival wrapped up on Sunday 9th November with a Book Brunch, a refreshed format where attendees rotated between tables to chat with featured writers in relaxed conversation.

Notable Authors & Home-Grown Voices

While many of the guest authors hail from across the Caribbean and beyond, the BVI itself boasts rich literary talent. A key figure is Dr. Richard Georges, the first Poet Laureate of the British Virgin Islands. His most recent collection, Epiphaneia (2019), won the 2020 OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature.

Other prominent names appearing in the 2025 lineup include:

• Marsha Massiah, the Founder and Executive Director of the Brooklyn Caribbean Literary Festival (BCLF), the only U.S. literary festival dedicated exclusively to Caribbean literature and indigenous storytelling.
• Celeste Mohammed is a Trinidadian lawyer-turned-writer and the author of Pleasantview which won the 2022 OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature, the 2022 CLMP Firecracker Award for Fiction, and was a finalist for the UK Society of Authors McKitterick Prize for Fiction.
• Tiphanie Yanique, the author of the novel, Monster in the Middle, which was selected as a US Library of Congress Great Read for 2023. All of whom bring strong regional and diasporic voices into the conversation.

All bring strong regional and diasporic voices into the conversation.

For 2025, the BVI Lit Fest invites you to a celebration of stories, big and small, those of the waves and wind, of migration and memory, of islands and imagination. With its growing reputation, rich programming, and blend of local and international talent, this festival stands as a meaningful platform for Caribbean literature and culture.

For 2025, the BVI Lit Fest invites you to a celebration of stories big and small those of the waves and wind, of migration and memory, of islands and imagination. With its growing reputation, rich programming, and blend of local and international talent, this festival stands as a meaningful platform for Caribbean literature and culture.

Whether you are a reader, writer, or simply an admirer of words and place, the BVI Lit Fest offers a chance to step into the narrative of island life. And as home-grown poet Richard Georges reminds us: “The sea shapes the story, but the story also shapes how we live, listen, and become.”

The BVI is a British Overseas Territory in the Caribbean