Contact

Biography

The Pan Collective is a group website written by some of the best and brightest women living in or hailing from the Caribbean. The site strongly features their positive perceptions and opinions of the region they call home -- both through their personal experiences, as well as unique perspectives on media interpretation of our countries. Here you'll learn about art, culture, restaurants, food, family life -- everything you'd ever want to learn about the West Indies, but were afraid to ask. The site also features photography and art from the region and explores what it's like to be a woman in a place (or from a place) as rich as each of the islands which make up the Caribbean.

Interested in being a part of The Pan Collective? If so, please send an e-mail with your name, which Caribbean country you're from/where you live, and a sample post (with image attached) to [email protected].


Read below to find out more about each of the authors of The Pan Collective.


* * * * *

KarenKaren Walrond is a full-time writer and photographer, currently living in her native Trinidad & Tobago. She is the author of the weblog Chookooloonks, describing her life in the Caribbean with her husband, Marcus, and their daughter, Alexis. Chookooloonks has provided personal insight into adoption and parenting to thousands, and currently receives 1,500+ hits per day. Chookooloonks was recently named one of the Best Adoption Blogs on the Web by Adoptive Families Magazine. In addition, Karen is the publisher of Indigo Leaf Magazine, an online magazine featuring emerging artists and writers. Karen is also on the staff of Blogging Baby, the leading parenting news and information weblog, and the Contributing Editor of the Caribbean for BlogHer, a organization designed to create opportunities for women bloggers to pursue exposure, education, and community.

* * * * *

attillahAttillah Springer is a writer born in Trinidad & Tobago and is currently plotting ways to continue to wander the planet. A weekly feature columnist with Trinidad's national newspaper, the Trinidad Guardian, her writing and travels have seen her exploring different notions of nationhood, culture, migration and what home means from the point of view of a young woman of colour from a young post-colonial nation.

She is also a master of the meggie arts, which you can read all about on her personal blog Four Fingers and A Thumb.

* * * * *

elspethElspeth Duncan is an independent writer, musician, graphic artist, photographer and film maker/videographer based in Trinidad & Tobago. Her one-woman company, Happy Hippy Productions, embraces all of her creative facets for production of independent works. It is her forum for creating artistic works, productions and experiences that uplift, inspire, shift perspectives and create awareness in self and others.

Whatever the medium, her work is largely conceptual and interactive, as she likes people to be a part of the process rather than being simply viewers or listeners.

Read more about Elspeth at her personal blog, Now is Wow.

* * * * *

georgiaGeorgia Popplewell lives in her native Trinidad, where she writes and makes videos and blogs and podcasts and gets too many tech support calls from her friends. She co-owns a publishing company, Tangerine Publishing, and is music editor for Caribbean Beat magazine.

Georgia blogs and podcasts at her personal site Caribbean Free Radio, the region's first podcasting site. She also photoblogs at Caribbean Free Photo, and videocasts occasionally at Caribbean Free Video. In addition, Georgia is also Caribbean region editor for Global Voices and contributes to the Caribbean Beat Weblog and the Studio Film Club blog.

* * * * *

mikailaMikaila Brown is a doctoral student in cultural Anthropology and Education. Born in Jamaica but bred in South Florida, she has recently returned to Jamaica to finish her research and write her dissertation. Convinced she has reconnected with her geographic soul mate, she plans to remain in Jamaica “for better or worse.” Using the island as a “university for life,” her new teachers range from government officials to fruit vendors; her classrooms are art galleries, mountainside coffee shops, and waterfalls, and class topics include how to willy bounce.

* * * * *

arubagirlArubagirl was born in The Hague, The Netherlands in 1980, and picked up a charming Dutch accent from the experience. She could have been one of those people who never lived in the Caribbean, but fate decided otherwise. When she was three, her parents decided to leave her birth country for their home country, Aruba. She thinks it's the best decision they ever made, and she continues to live there today.

She's collected just about every stone that dots Aruba's mondi, except for one kind: the cudi, which is the stone that her Pre-Columbian ancestors used to prepare maize.

She's still searching for it.

You can read more about Arubagirl at her personal blog, Lost in Smallness.

* * * * *

francineEngineer by profession, artist by choice and island girl at heart, Francine shares her life in France with her husband Lucas, and fuzzy cat Mozaique. Born in Grenada, she has lived in four beautiful Caribbean islands and has had the good fortune to visit many of the others. A confessed internet junky, she nonetheless can be usually found in her self-titled atelier working on her latest scrapbook page or dreaming of sunny beaches.

Read more about Francine at her personal blog, Callaloo Soup.

* * * * *

titilayoTitilayo was born and raised in Barbados, and lives there still. She likes books, dieffenbachia, hot and sour soup, tamarind balls, turtles and tortoises, soursop punch, silver jewelry, movies that make her cry, and cheese. She dreams of having a small house and a big garden in one of Barbados's rural parishes (assuming that they manage to stay rural). Her favourite punctuation mark is the mdash. She's been blogging since 2001, but she's not very good at writing about herself. Titilayo is not her real name.


Read more about the life and times of Titilayo at Gallimaufry.