Your guide to events around the Caribbean in September and October • Dispatches from our network of correspondents. Find your scene at the trinidad+tobago film festival, celebrate contemporary Caribbean writing at the Brooklyn Book Festival, and learn about St Lucia’s unique flower festivals • Shivanee Ramlochan meets the young St Lucian poet Vladimir Lucien • Antiguan designer Jean-Marie Thomas suggests two breezy ensembles perfect for an elegant day on the beach or a relaxed night out • Diana McCaulay’s novel Huracan, and our other reading picks this month • How hard can it be to organise a “culinary excursion”? Franka Philip finds out • The dancehall portraits that are Jamaican artist Ebony G. Patterson’s signature works combine boldly clashing colours and textures with pointed questions about gender politics. Nicholas Laughlin profiles a rising star of the contemporary art scene • Trinidadian poet-musician Muhammad Muwakil is a man on a mission, says Nazma Muller, out to change minds and hearts • Filmmaker Ian Harnarine’s debut Doubles with Slight Pepper is already an international prizewinner. Mariel Brown talks to the Trini-Canadian about the story behind the camera • Puerto Rican poet Loretta Collins Klobah on why poetry still matters — as told to Andre Bagoo • No musician has had a greater influence on British reggae than Dennis Bovell, says Garry Steckles. Plus a tribute to the late Masud Sadiki of St Kitts • For Attillah Springer, Trinidad is home — but London is a place as special as it is hard to define • Anita Sethi went to Guyana to find out more about her family — and found that the most meaningful history isn’t always in the archives • Today, tiny Tintamarre is the haunt of beach-loving daytrippers. But, as Montague Kobbe discovers, the little island off the coast of St Martin was once a kingdom of eccentric dreams • She doesn’t like the word “illiterate,” but Paula Lucie-Smith has done more than anyone to help “non-readers” in Trinidad and Tobago. Lisa Allen-Agostini meets the founder of the Adult Literacy Tutors Association • James Ferguson recalls the 1937 tragedy of the Massacre River, a bloody day in the histories of Haiti and the Dominican Republic • Find out how you can help celebrate the best travel destinations, hotels, and restaurants in the Caribbean Airlines network