Rebel Women Lit Soul Renewal Retreat: Yoga, Journaling, Napping, and Tarot at TrueSelf Centre of Being

Our recent event brought together a group of individuals for a special day of self-reflection, mindfulness, and community. Check out these photos from the event and relive the beautiful moments we shared together.

“Magical things are always happening” - Pietra Brown

Photography by Ornella Taylor

Caterer: Love Bites By AB: Arlene Bartley - +1 (876) 355-0257 instagram.com/lovebitesbyab

Yoga Instructor: Elizabeth Goffe -  trueselfpractice@gmail.com book through TrueSelf Centre

Tarot Reader: Neochea - neocheaf@gmail.com - book through TrueSelf Centre

Photographer: Ornella 'Nelly' Taylor - ornellataylor92@gmail.com nstagram.com/nellynelltaylor

RWL February 2023 - Gathering at Poet's Corner Hope Gardens

On February 5th, the members of our bibliotherapy community gathered at Poet’s Corner in Hope Gardens to celebrate Rebel Women Lit's anniversary and our journey towards self-love. It was a day of cake, cookies, cotton candy, and most importantly, an opportunity to reflect on the growth we’ve experienced on this journey.

For the months of January and February, we read "30 Things I Love About Myself" by Radhika Sanghani. During our meetup, we took inspiration from the book and started our own lists of 30 things we loved about ourselves. It was a wonderful experience to witness some members surpassing 30, while others had only a few. Regardless of the number, it was evident that the journey towards self-love is a unique and personal one.

As we continue our journey, we look forward to meeting for our online book club on March 5th on Google Meet. You can RSVP to attend our upcoming book club. We will be reading Nina's story, and it's an opportunity for us to reflect on our own experiences of self-love and our place in the universe.

Our bibliotherapy community is a space that allows us to grow in self-love and self-awareness. It's a journey we embark on together and with each passing day, we become more confident in our abilities and more accepting of ourselves.

Rebel Women Lit Bibliotherapy Retreat

Join our community for a day of mindful journaling, yoga, swimming, laughter and warmth by the waterfalls of On March 13th, Rebel Women Lit travelled to Breadnut Valley Estate in St. Elizabeth for a day of yoga, journaling, swimming, hiking and great food!

We’re so grateful we got to enjoy movements with TrueSelf Center and fantastic food with Sippin’ Live.

Photography by Ornella Taylor

RWL Verandah Chat At Haveli Last Sundays

Last Sundays is a new monthly event from Haveli that celebrates profitable women-led businesses that centre purpose, impact and building communities.

At the Verandah Chat, Jherane, founder of Rebel Women Lit, and Mina, founder of Haveli, had an in depth conversation about what drives their businesses, exercising their boundaries, and building communities.

The Haveli and Rebel Women Lit communities came together for a beautiful and tender day of storytelling, fashion and laughter.

Watch the full chat with the founders of Haveli & RWL, and visit Haveli on 11 Devon Road, every last Sunday to celebrate other women-ran businesses.

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Winners of the Caribbean Readers' Awards 2021

Over 500 people voted in our 2021 Caribbean Readers’ Awards, and we are excited to announce the winners!

The Caribbean Readers’ Award recognizes outstanding works in Caribbean Literature, as chosen by readers across the world. The prize is given to one fiction novel, nonfiction works, short stories, and poetry.

BEST NOVEL (ADULT)

Winner: Pleasantview by Celeste Mohammed

Shortlist

A Master of Djinn by P. Djeli Clark

Dream Country by Ashaye Brown

Friendship Estate by Lynda R. Edwards

Fortune by Amanda Smyth

How the One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her House by Cherie Jones

Josephine Against the Sea by Shakirah Bourne

Libertie by Kaitlyn Greenidge

No Gods, No Monsters by Cadwell Turnbull

Pleasantview by Celeste Mohammed

This One Sky Day by Leone Ross

What Storm, What Thunder by Myriam J.A. Chancy
 

POETRY COLLECTION

Winner: Pandemic Poems by Olive Senior

Shortlist
Habitus by Radna Fabias

Pandemic Poems by Olive Senior

Running With Daffodils by Samantha R.S.

Sky Juice by Natalie Corthésy

The ABCs of Paradise Found by Karen Amanda

Thinking with Trees by Jason Allen-Paisant

What Noise Against the Cane by Desiree C. Bailey

 

BEST TRANSLATED WORK

Winner: Habitus by Radna Fabias

BEST NON-FICTION (BOOK)

Winner: Things I Have Withheld by Kei Miller

Shortlist
Lost Stitches by Daniel Melville

The Disordered Cosmos by Chanda Prescod-Weinstein

Things I Have Withheld by Kei Miller

BEST RWL MAGAZINE PIECE

Winner: Bomber And The Breadfruit Tree

Shortlist
Bomber And The Breadfruit Tree

Ole Jezebel By Karolyn Smith

The Soliloquy Of A Thousand Slaps By Solare

Thank you to everyone who voted and showed their support for their favourite author and works written this year. We look forward to making it even better as we traverse 2022, until then…

Stay Lit!

to Jodi...

When Great Trees Fall by Maya Angelou

When great trees fall, rocks on distant hills shudder, lions hunker down in tall grasses, and even elephants lumber after safety.

When great trees fall in forests, small things recoil into silence, their senses eroded beyond fear.

When great souls die, the air around us becomes light, rare, sterile. We breathe, briefly. Our eyes, briefly, see with a hurtful clarity. Our memory, suddenly sharpened, examines, gnaws on kind words unsaid, promised walks never taken. Great souls die and our reality, bound to them, takes leave of us. Our souls, dependent upon their nurture, now shrink, wizened. Our minds, formed and informed by their radiance,
 fall away. We are not so much maddened as reduced to the unutterable ignorance
 of dark, cold caves.

And when great souls die, after a period peace blooms ,slowly and always irregularly. Spaces fill with a kind of soothing electric vibration. Our senses, restored, never to be the same, whisper to us.

They existed. They existed.

We can be. Be and be better.

For they existed.

Tributes from the RWL Community

A Remembrance

“…all of my Jodi memories are of her smiling or giving a kind of...somehow good natured? Side eye to nonsense. Didn't see her much in person since covid came so soon after I started coming to physical book club but her observations were always so incisive and well informed, I couldn't believe she was in med school or how young she was when I found out because she gave off this comfort and ease with compassion and knowledge about history, which is sometimes lacking in many doctors and medical hopefuls I've encountered. And she ran the Olive Senior book club like an absolute boss.

Feeling the loss and sending love and light to her family and all close to her. A brilliant light out too soon.”

by Rhea

“composure and clarity. that was my first impression of jodi, from my first full meeting. she always had sharp observations that she would back up with etymological, literary, medical, and other sources. but it took me at least a few more book club meetings to come to understand the lightness that jodi brought. meaning the type of lightness that you encounter when you know you're interacting with a self-actualized human being.

i remember our fun astrology night with the author junauda petrus because i found out that jodi was also a leo rising, and was completely excited that we had something in common. i dm'ed jodi this year, a feat for me given that dm's are truly terrifying for me. i'm glad i did. we talked about going to the folklore trivia event coming up, where she told us that the "douens," through possible spanish etymology, are likely a folkloric tie between caribbean and central american indigenous groups.

i thought mourning someone you've only known virtually would be weird. but with jodi, it makes all the sense in the world. i don't question it because her impact is so clear and so unmistakable. to her family, i wish you comfort and strength and guidance. i know that jodi didn't become jodi on her own. please know that even someone an ocean away was and is impacted by her life, and that her presence was unmistakable even virtually.”

by jacqui

Jodi <3

Some adjectives that come to mind when you think of Jodi are: warm, thoughtful, brilliant and trustworthy. Her presence was calming yet firm. In late 2019, Rebel Women Lit announced our library renewal project at Mary’s Child Home for Teen Mothers and Jodi was one of the first people in our community to express interest. Each Saturday we met, Jodi arrived with enthusiasm to help organize this space intended for the girls and their babies. She was extremely passionate about this project, and even came up with a system to help us track the book donations we had made, as well as categorise the books that already existed in the space. 

Last year, Mary’s Child stopped taking visitors very early into the pandemic. This decision brought our project to a complete stop. There was a high level of uncertainty surrounding the restart date, and the home’s administration couldn’t give us an estimated return date. Jodi’s dedication to this space showed itself in the many emails and whatsapp messages she sent trying to come up with ideas to regain access to the space:

“Do you think they would let us come back if all the members on the team are fully vaccinated?”

“Did you let them know we’ll be wearing our masks the entire time we’ll be there?”

“Hey :), any updates from Mary’s Child?”

Regrettably, the home still restricts visitors to the compound so this project still remains postponed. However, we will channel Jodi’s fervour and commitment to ensure this space is completed. Jodi shared our belief in the power of reading to help heal, connect, strengthen and validate ourselves. She shared our belief in books being a bridge to help us understand each other.

We will miss her kindness, her gentleness and her wittiness, but we hold a space in our hearts that is glad to have had the privilege to know her.

by Ashley

RWL Readers' Retreat - Holywell Park

Photos from our June 2021 readers’ retreat to Holywell Park.
📸: Nelly Taylor