Happy new year
So as a new year's present to the nation the Express has fired B.C. Pires, that newspaper's best writer. His final column there appears today.
Sentence for sentence, paragraph for paragraph, insight for insight, B.C. is one of the finest writers at work not just in Trinidad and Tobago but in the Caribbean. He is fiercely intelligent, profoundly sane, a masterful craftsman of prose, and, on top of all that, funny. His column is one of the few things in the daily press worth buying a newspaper for. He is exactly the sort of writer the Express should be seeking out and nurturing. Instead....
The only consolation is that B.C. is now writing a column for the Barbados Nation--what has the world come to, when Bajans have more of a sense of humour than Trinis? And in a fortnight he will launch a new website, www.bcraw.com. So he's certainly not disappearing. Still, it's sad and frankly embarrassing that the Express apparently thinks there is no place for a writer like B.C. Pires in our national conversation.
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Who is Nicholas Laughlin?
I am a writer (read some of my reviews, essays, etc. at Choosing My Confessions), editor of The Caribbean Review of Books and Caribbean Beat, and programme director of the Bocas Lit Fest. Visit my home page for more details. I’m a bit more active on Twitter: @nplaughlin.
I’m a co-director of Alice Yard, an experimental creative space and network in Port of Spain.
I co-edit Town, a modest literary magazine published in two formats: broadsides posted in public locations around Port of Spain, and online.
See photos at my Flickr page.
See my collaboration with artist Christopher Cozier, Tropical Night.
Amours de voyage; or, notes from an occasional traveller.
Some poems.
Email me at:
nicholaslaughlin[at]gmail[dot]com
My second book of poems, Enemy Luck, was published in 2019 by Peepal Tree Press.
My first book of poems, The Strange Years of My Life, was published in 2015 by Peepal Tree Press.
I’m a co-director of Alice Yard, an experimental creative space and network in Port of Spain.
I co-edit Town, a modest literary magazine published in two formats: broadsides posted in public locations around Port of Spain, and online.
See photos at my Flickr page.
See my collaboration with artist Christopher Cozier, Tropical Night.
Amours de voyage; or, notes from an occasional traveller.
Some poems.
Email me at:
nicholaslaughlin[at]gmail[dot]com
Blogs I read oftenish
Caribbean magazines, journals, newspapers
Literary magazines, websites, and blogs around the world
Other people, places, things that interest me (in no particular order)
6 comments:
To me express was always horrible at making decisions that were good for the paper. It was so years ago when I worked there and it still remains today it seems.
I remember reading a review of a collection of Pires' columns from over the years and I really loved some of the excerpts. Glad to see he's coming to the internets.
If BC is the best writer The Express has then the paper is a rag.
That guy is so shallow he drowns in the little originality he has left.
But he can work a miami vice styled jacket though!
BC's was one of the reasons I buy the Express. Now that he's gone the paper has been devalued in my estimation.
I enjoy his writings, but what I enjoyed most of all was when he posed as a Cuban artist to turn thr tables on Allyson Henessy and Judy Alcantatra who specialised in finding people to bring on their morning program to pappyshow while having absolutely no interest in the people or their issues.
I would love to see that episode again...I wonder if BC has a video recording of it.
I'll be followingf his exploits on bcraw.com....as soon as it gets going.
late to the show but i second anonymous! i want to see that video too, never saw it before but it sounds hilarious!i have to say that i read bc's articles more than any other express contributor. he was an original writer if sometimes repetitive. i loved his voice, distinctly trinidadian, and his ability to write his point of view without kowtowing to anyone else. will save his website! i hope he keeps it updated!
BC was okay. Some days he was funny and other days he was terribly pedantic. You can't be a hit all the time, but I am sorry I missed this. I really liked his columns in general.
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