Marsha Massiah - Founder/Executive Director

Marsha's love affair with stories began as she clung to the hemline of her grandmother's skirt, the eager, young, wide-eyed receiving vessel for generations of her families' stories. Unbeknownst to her family and herself, her purpose as a repository for Caribbean anthologies was being fashioned. Much later in adulthood and after two decades in education and event management as a hobby, Marsha migrated her passions to its happy place: the intersection of Caribbean stories, culture and history.

The BCLF was born out of her fiery devotion to her heritage and the need to promote the islands to which she is eternally indebted. Yearly, she mirrors Explainer’s Lorraine and leaves NY and her career as an instructional designer in healthcare behind. She dons wings and flies south to play ah Mas in the Greatest Festival on Earth - although she despises drinking rum. She is a proud honors graduate of the University of the West Indies, lists a 3-day stint in a roti shop among her wealth of work experience, and is obsessed with proving that one can indeed, with exercise, outwork a steady diet of cake and pone.

Mellany Paynter - Founding Partner/Director of Operations

Mellany is a Project Development Manager combining her passions for writing, holistic wellness, and her extensive project management experience, combining left and right brain skills to support innovative projects across several industries, including Print Media, Film + TV, and Publishing.

As a freelance writer/editor for over 20 years, she creates digital content daily. On any given day, her focus can range from creating and editing written content to updating websites. Other days, she may be planning, coordinating and managing productions.

She is a graduate of Howard University (the real HU), with a degree in Civil Engineering.

In 2016, she wrote and published her memoir, Dancing At The Crossroad - A Grief Recovery Journal after losing her mother unexpectedly. A true island girl, she is solar powered and loves being outdoors. She enjoys a good ‘buss up shut’ and curry, and has championed the cause to swap out many American holiday celebrations with a curry dish. She considers herself a world citizen and is antsy to take her rightful place in the travel world.

Melissa Harper - Director of Logistics/Assistant Director of Programming

After spending ten years in Human Resources, Melissa transitioned to Compliance/Project Management overseeing the installation of sprinkler and fire protection systems throughout NYC. She's preoccupied with getting Dumplings, Provisions & Saltfish added to the WHO Food Pyramid.

She believes world peace can be achieved through a spirited All Fours tournament. In her spare time she enjoys reading and viewing just about any sport.

In her previous life, Melissa was the undefeated champion of Moral, the most highly underrated of all ballgames, to which she credits her highly evolved sense of social justice.

  • BCLF Literary Advisor

    After forging a prestigious career as a high school geography teacher, she found her penchant for the written arts after being convinced to participate in a post-retirement writers’ group. The fact that this unlikely decision was the genesis of a career that would see her go on to attain a Master’s of Fine Arts (MFA) in creative writing at age 70, as well as produce a body of award-winning literature, speaks to the diverse nature of the river from which literary talent flows.

    Most importantly, however, her creative outputs never fail to address and investigate what it means to be Caribbean, in general, and Trinbagonian 🇹🇹, in particular, and her work beautifully and positively contributes to the ever-evolving narrative of Caribbean identity in the diaspora.

  • BCLF Literary Godmother

    Elizabeth Nunez, PhD, immigrated to the US from Trinidad 🇹🇹after completing high school there. She is the award-winning author of a memoir and nine novels, four of them selected as New York Times Editors Choice.

    Her memoir Not for Everyday Use won the 2015 Hurston Wright Legacy Award and is an Oprah online book club selection. Her latest novel Even in Paradise, is an O, the Oprah Magazine and Essence selection.

    Nunez’s other novels are: Boundaries (nominated for a NAACP Image Award); Anna In-Between (PEN Oakland Award and long-listed for an IMPAC Dublin International Literary Award); Prospero’s Daughter (2010 Trinidad and Tobago One Book selection);Bruised Hibiscus (American Book Award); Beyond `the Limbo Silence (Independent Publishers Book Award); Grace; Discretion (short-listed for the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award); and When Rocks Dance.

    Nunez is co-editor of the anthology Blue Latitudes: Caribbean Women Writers at Home and Abroad, co-founder of the National Black Writers Conference, and executive producer of the NY Emmy-nominated CUNY-TV series Black Writers in America. Nunez received her PhD in English Literature from NYU and is a Distinguished Professor at Hunter College, CUNY, where she teaches literature by Caribbean Women Writers and Creative Writing.