Welcome to The Bookcase.

I'm your host, Shawna Richards, a sometime writer and a longtime reader.

I invite you to join me as we explore The Bookcase and celebrate Virgin Islands authors and talent.

Each week on The Bookcase, we'll introduce you to a local author and learn more about them and their work.

A storyteller lives in each of us, and I'm so excited to give our homegrown storytellers a chance to tell their stories.

Tonight's selection from The Bookcase is, Rica and The Tamarind Tree.

And I am so honored to welcome it's author Valrica Bryson.

Valrica, welcome to The Bookcase.

Thank you so much for joining us this evening.

Hi, everybody.

Thank you so much for having me, Shawna.

I'm so glad and elated to be here.

And we're you know we’re just so proud to be able to showcase yet another Virgin Islands writer.

But our audience probably knows you as Valrica Bryson the educator, the culture bearer.

But let us tell us a little bit about Valrica Bryson the writer.

Oh Valrica Bryson, the writer.

I started writing when I was younger.

My brother and I, we love writing poetry.

So I've written a lot of poetry, and then I decided that you know I should write about my life and how we grew up on St. Croix.

I think it would, it would you know, I thought that would be a real good thing for students and children to read about the adventures I had as a little girl and with my brothers and my sisters and my friends in the neighborhood.

So I thought it was, you know, something to do to venture out of just writing poetry, you know?

So Rica and The Tamarind Tree is based on your young life growing up, growing up on St. Croix and the Rica in the story certainly has your entire face, your smile, eyes, everything.

How did you find that illustrator to so perfectly capture who you are?

Well, I could give you a story about the illustrator.

First off, he knows me.

He knew me for a while because he went to the St. Croix Educational Complex High School.

He was in the art program at the high school.

He's a real good artist.

His name is Akeemo Lionel, staff sergeant.

Probably be a little higher in rank now.

I'm not sure.

Staff Sergeant Akeemo Lionel.

He went to Complex for four years.

He knew me there.

I also sent him a lot of pictures of me as a child for him to come up with the illustrations that he came up with.

He did a superb job with that.

A real good job with that He did.

He certainly did.

So in Rica and The Tamarind Tree when we are introduced to Rica, she and her brothers are off on an adventure which takes them to the biggest tamarind tree in search of the best fruit.

And what we see about Rica is that she's fearless.

She's not listening to any warnings or anything.

How much of Valrica is there in that Rica And The Tamarind Tree story?

Every single bit of that Rica and that Tamarind Tree is the Rica you know today the Rica who challenges her self the Rica who just feels that nothing is impossible.

And even if I didn't get it the first time, I'm trying the second, third, fourth time until it's done or until I achieve that goal, you know, it's just it's just who I am.

I like a challenge and I don't stop, it’s just to get out there and just take the chance.

You know, you never know what happens when you take that chance.

You could fall real hard.

When you were when you were writing this story or when you thought about writing this story, why did you set out to write a children's story?

I thought that our kids are in the VI, well kids all over, you know, they I don't want to put a whole stigma on all of them, but for them to see what's going on on the outside, like what you could do outside, you could ride your bike, you could go climb a tree, especially in the Virgin Islands.

Me in the Virgin Islands we have all these tamarind trees, we have kenip trees.

It's summertime.

You know, that time we used to just go all over to the beach.

So, you know, it's just for kids to see It's more than just sitting inside and watching television or playing on on a Nintendo or, you know, it's just you could do a lot more and hopefully it'll inspire kids to do a lot more.

You know, and that's why I wrote it for kids, for them to get some kind of inspiration to be explorers.

How important, as an educator, how important is it for children to open a book and see characters that look like them?

Oh, it's first off, seeing people that look like them is just is very important.

You know, as growing up as a child, I didn't know no black authors until I got to high school.

You know, I had Mrs. Larocque in the St. Croix Central High School in 12th grade, and she was the first teacher to introduce me to black authors and to know that it had black people writing books was like, what?

Really?

You know, everything was made by, you know, other people.

But you never saw anybody that looks like you writing a book.

Secondly, people from the VI I think one one of the inspirations for me was this young man I work with named Yohance Henley, Yohance, He wrote some Anansi stories and I was telling him about my idea for my books.

And he was like, Mrs. B write it write it you need to write it Mrs B. go ahead and write it.

I was like, oh I write poetry, but I'm not sure if I could write a story, you know?

And he was like, no go ahead and write the story and he's actually the one that help me put the book together you know.

So when I saw, you know, the younger generation.

Another person that inspired me in writing too was Zayd Saleem.

Zayd wrote, you know Zayd also wrote a book.

So, you know, with, you know, having two young people that’s they’re doing it and you’re like okay I'm an old crook, but I’m going to still try to do this thing you know.

How much of a of a leap was it for you from to go from writing poetry to go to writing prose and fiction?

Oh, wow.

It was like, okay, so the poetry really was about my life too, you know just poems about things that happen.

You know over my, like, when I was in elementary school, things that happened there, things that happened when I was in junior high and high school and college, you know, the poems that were about that.

So I figured it would be easy to sit and write about my life.

Now I have an editor, I’m not perfect you know and it's funny how I bumped into this editor.

She we were working on a project and I was telling her about my book and she was like you know what, I said to her, Ms. Crusky I'm writing this book about my you know, about my life and and all that.

She said you’re writing a memoir.

I was like, Oh, okay, I'm writing a memoir.

She said, You're writing a memoir?

I was like, okay, yeah, I'm writing a memoir, but I don't have an editor.

So Ms. Crusky said oh I would love to read.

I would love to be an editor.

So, I mean, everything worked out.

Yes, yes, yes, yes.

When you started writing Rica and the and the Tamarind Tree, who were your early readers?

Who were the people that you are most comfortable sharing your work with and that you can rely on for honest critique and feedback?

I shared my book with my niece Rosilda Xiomara Ottley-Hermon.

I shared it with her and I shared it with my grand daughter my grand daughter, as she's a storyteller.

She tells stories herself, and I gave her the book to read as she started reading and she didn't put it down.

I was like, wait she didnt put down my book aint that bad after all.

And so when she finished reading it, she was like, Wow, yeah, she calls me Auntie.

And she said Auntie, this is good.

You really fall out a Tamarind tree you don't listen.

She was like, uncle Junior and uncle Ray was talking to you and you didnt listen I said no I didn't listen.

So she was my first critic.

She was my first critic.

Now, now that your book has been published and is available, what what types of feedback are you getting from readers?

Oh, I had well, when I posted it on Facebook, a lot of people said they wanted it for like the classroom.

So the teachers that I knew that wanted the book, I ordered the book and I sent it out to some of the teachers.

And then this lady said that this school wanted to get the book in St. Thomas for the whole school.

So she ordered the book and I was like, whoa, wow, the book is getting out there.

And then another lady called me.

She said, you know, I saw that your book was on Facebook.

And I went and I bought it and I read it.

When are you coming up with the next one?

I was like, girl you know?

And so people started calling me about the book and where can they get the book and stuff like that.

So, like it must be all right book, you know, it must be all right.

So, well, I think part of the charm is that, again, representation people being able to see themselves.

But you wrote a book about your adventures, about a young girl's adventures.

When you were growing up And when you were reading, were you reading books that had young women having big adventures?

No, no, honestly, no.

Not like the adventures, like my next book is Rica In The Cow Field.

So that’s going to be a good one too.

No, I didn't read books that really depicted people's lives, you know, and what all they did.

So you know, that's another reason too you know writing the book for people to see that we're human, we're human beings.

You know what I'm saying?

We have choices we can make.

Things are right, things wrong.

You know That's a next thing I wanted to portray what that was that, you know, we're all humans, you know.

So when you were growing up and going in our school system, what impact would it have had on you as a young reader to see stories with little girls with, you know, curly hair, you know, brown skin?

What would that have meant to you?

I think that would have been a real encouragement for me.

Like I said, I like to write and my brother and I, he passed away but we both loved to write poetry.

And if I saw, like I read a lot of poems from black poets, so that kind of encouraged me to write poetry.

If I had seen as a little girl books with, you know, little girls that look like me with, you know, curly hair and afros, you know what I'm saying?

I that would of intrigue me, like to even start writing my own story back then.

You know, it would have been really, really it would have been different.

It would have been a different experience.

Like I said, when I got into Miss La Rocque’s class of 12th grade and we read Richard Wright, I was like oh my gosh, this man can write.

And then I in my first year of college, I started to collect books from black authors, and I started reading.

And I had like, I had like a lot of books.

My mom always bought us books, you know, and we always read, but it wasn't books from us.

So when I learned that there were black authors out there, I started collecting their books I mean I have, well I had, they're all in storage at home, but I need to bring them up.

I have a lot of books on black authors.

I loaned some out and I was kind of sorry I did that because you don't get your stuff back.

Who are some of the authors.

Valrica, Who are some of the authors you mentioned having a large collection of black authors who are some of the authors that you enjoy and that are inspired by?

Okay, let me think and spread the books.

Um, some of the books weren't all kid books their were some of what's her name?

Oh, gosh, I nervous So are you reading like Langston Hughes?

Yes.

And what's her name?

She writes these love novels or.

Gosh, I have most of her books.

Who is that?

Who?

Zane.

Yes, I have most of her books.

And then I have the other lady.

She came out a little later.

She came out like in the nineties, the elderly lady oh Jesus.

But still so many, they’re many more authors now that that you can find.

Yeah that again are speaking about the black experience.

It’s rich and you know what I like to a lot of kids are writing.

A lot more children are writing children's books.

A lot more black kids are writing children's books.

And I think that's that's the next thing that's And like like I was telling about Yohance and Zade.

There's Julio Peterson.

He wrote two books, you know, so and another person that kind of inspired me too, was oh gosh, just had his name on the top of my head.

Well, there's lots of there are lots of local authors.

Many of who we know, what's his name?

fortunate to showcase, church with us.

What’s his name?

But but while you're while you're thinking about that, who's who is your who is your writing mentor?

I know you talked about Ms.. La Rocque back at Central High, english teacher.

So she was a writing mentor, encouraged you to write, but who would you say is a is a mentor now, and that's someone that really guides you in your writing journey?

Well, I want to go back to college.

When I was in college, I started to write some stories and Dr. Emmanuel, Jean Emmanuel he was like you could really write I was like oh yeah, you know, I said, well I remember my english teacher in 12 grade telling me, you know, you have a good skill here with your writing skills.

And then when I went to college, Dr. Emmanuel you know, he was like, you should write more.

You could really write.

I was like oh okay.

Another person who I truly, truly admires Alsace Lewis Brown.

Alsace is one of my greatest mentors.

I mean, I look up to her so much like she's just incredible.

She's just overall incredible person and a good writer, you know.

And right now she's just yeah, my biggest mentor is Alsace.

What can you tell us about your writing process?

How do you how do you get the stories out of out of your head and onto the page?

Okay.

So I suffer from a little bit of insomnia.

So what I do is like the nights that I can't sleep, I just get on the computer and like I just started writing about one of my stories.

I have like six finished and I'm writing the seventh.

I start writing about a trip we took back home to Aruba.

So I couldn't sleep.

And I just said, you know I just picked up my laptop and I sat on my bed and I just started typing.

You know, I just type and then when I finished, I put it down.

I leave it for a while, a month or so, and then I go back to it and I make corrections and then I go back.

I put it back down again.

I don't trouble it for another month and then I pick it back up again and make more changes, you know.

So as my books get to my editor, then once this one is finished, you know, I send it to her and she does the editing.

So do you self-publish or do you work with a publisher?

Okay, so my first book was self-published and I was up for an award, but because my book was self-published they didn't want to use the book.

So I decided that henceforth I'll use Caribbean Writer as my publisher so that I could have some kind of publisher instead of instead of self publishing.

For a child who is not from the caribbean right, will they still see themselves in your story?

You know, what I like is with my story, I tried to explain like St. Croix and try to explain the tamarind like what a tamarind is and so that if anybody that comes from anywhere and they go to the island and they see you know the fruit, they'll be like I know this or even if they're going to a grocery store up here you know we have all these markets and stuff and they could see the fruit and say hey that's the fruit that the lady had in her book.

You know, that kind of way.

My granddaughter took the book to school and the librarian, she when my granddaughter went into the library she was like this is my grandma's book.

She was showing off I guess.

And she said, I have that book.

I bought that book.

And my granddaughter was like, really?

And she had the book on a shelf.

So, you know, I was like, when she came home, she was so elated.

She was like, you know that I took the book to show the liberanian but she already ordered the book I was like okay, yay!

And that's and that's definitely that's definitely a proud moment.

And what I liked in your story is that you talked about all of the things that can be made with Tamarind.

You talked about tamarind balls and tamarind stew.

You talked about all of the things that can be made so it was also very educational for the person who reading, that's the purpose too, not just not just write a story, but for people to learn and learn about the Virgin Islands and what we do in the Virgin Islands.

You know, it wasn't just about the story.

It is educational as well for anybody that picks up the book you know.

Have you written anything, any other works besides Rica and the Tamarind Tree?

I just finished Rica In The Cow Field and I also just finished When I just finished, I finished it already.

I just sent it to another illustrator because my illustrator is he's into his kids so he doesn't have the time anymore.

So I got a new illustrator.

You're going to see a new looking Rica.

And then I just wrote 12 skits in the same manner that Anton Taton wrote.

I may be sent his name wrong Tatone, Taton but I just wrote 12 skits for students to use in a classroom following the same pattern as Anton Taton yeah.

And that would be the Sarah and Addie skits.

Yes, that's the Sarah and Addie skits I just wrote 12 of those.

Well, I wrote 12 of those over the two years I've been here.

So I wrote 12 of those skits and four of five of those skits will be done in in the fall with WTJX.

Nice So why is it so important for you to tell these stories that elevate our culture?

I think that I think that we we're going to lose a generation of children if we don't put them learning our culture, if we don't put it out there.

It's so important to know who you are and where you come from.

I am, I am not from St. Croix.

I'm from Aruba.

So I have a broad spectrum of, of islands, you know, because I've been to St. Maarten and one of my stories is about St. Maarten and I have family in St. Maarten.

I've been to Aruba.

I went to Curacao you know, Bonaire.

All of those would be in my books you know in the in the series and my memoir, you know, where I've traveled and I think is so important, not just because of St. Croix, but just the Caribbean on a whole.

Having people know that you know people come from the Caribbean and we're intelligent.

We have imagination, you know just just to open the door for people to know with what we have and who we are.

You know, I think that's so important.

And for generations to come, when I pass somebody pick up Rica and The Tamarind Tree or Rica In The Cow Field, they could say oh my gosh, this woman did all this crazy stuff.

And they can say, wow, she had fun as a child.

And you know if tamarind trees are still around, if people don't even know what a cow field is.

I was asking a child the other day, you know what a cow field is?

Whats a cow field?

I never heard of a cow field you know.

So just to provide the opportunity to learn about the island, to learn about islands, to learn about culture, culture is so important.

You don't know who you are if you don't know your culture, you don't.

I love for you to share a passage from Rica And The Tamarind Tree with our audience.

If you have a favorite passage that you can read.

Well my favorite passage, my favorite passage Rica was a very stubborn little girl.

She edged a little further on the branch, trying to pick as much tamarind from the cracking branch.

ayo, give me a chance to get more tamarind.

Oh wow.

This branch has plenty tamarind look a coming down in a little while.

Another cracking sound was heard and Richie yelled out Rica, that branch is about to break.

Rica, Rica, Rica, The branch going to break.

He sounded real scared.

You have a goat mouth Rica yelled at the top of her voice.

This branch isn't about to break.

I will get one more tamarind for the road Crack, cracked, cracked.

The branch gave away.

The branch and Rica were falling.

It seemed like Rica was falling for an eternity as she fell to the ground.

That's my favorite.

And in that and in that we see again in the character that Rica is fearless.

She is reaching for that, reaching for that tamarind, even though is higher than she should be.

Further out in the branch than she should be.

And I, I really enjoyed I really enjoyed your story.

But what do you see your legacy as a writer and as a culture bearer?

that's a that's a heated question Shawna.

Oh, wow.

Wow.

Legacy, huh?

Wow.

I'm not sure.

I don't know.

I just hope for people to be inspired and, you know, like Rica, take chances, explore, learn, you know, step out of the box and, you know, just try to achieve and not be like you said, don't be afraid of anything.

Just be fearless and fearless and know that everything and anything is possible.

You know, just that's that's that.

I would hope that people see that, you know, in me and all of the stuff I've done as an author.

Yeah, that would be awesome.

So what's next for you and what would you say to that person out there who has a story to tell?

I would say to write, to write, just write it down.

Get somebody to edit the story for you.

Just take that chance.

Don't be afraid.

Just take the chance and do it.

You never know how far you’ll get and who you’ll influence.

I think that's the most important thing to be an influence and a positive influence on our children and the community that that's the most important.

And I think that is also one of the key messages of this book, you know, to be fearless, to be empowered and to reach for reach for things and not limit yourself and and I think that is one of the best messages that Rica and the tamarind tree could certainly pass on to our audience.

So it's been a pleasure to learn more about our local talent.

Valrica Bryson and her book Rica and the Tamarind Tree.

For more information on this book or any of the books featured on this program, visit our website at WWW.WTJX.ORG We appreciate your support of our local authors and we'll see you next week when we take another book from The Bookcase.