Caribbean Author

[leahtwilliams]

The Caribbean has stories too. 🇰🇳📚

When people think of the Caribbean, they often think of beaches, sunshine, and vacations.

But behind every island are generations of stories.

Stories of family.

Stories of survival.

Stories of love, loss, and resilience.

Sweet Like Sugar Cane is a piece of that storytelling tradition.

If you’re looking for a book that takes you somewhere new, add this one to your reading list. 🌿

#CaribbeanLiterature #BookRecommendations #Bookblr #IndieAuthor #HistoricalFiction

[leahtwilliams]

a florida teen gets exiled to his grandfather’s island in the caribbean 🇰🇳 and has to decide whether to keep floating or finally swim. culture shock, slow burn first love, and a grandfather who hits different. funny in the small moments, gonna catch you off guard by the end.

ebook 50% off all july on smashwords. paperback + audiobook everywhere → leahtwilliams.net

[leahtwilliams]

🏛️ The Odyssey character check 👀

Thousands of years later and we’re still drawn to these characters because every epic journey has a little bit of us in it.

So… who are you?

⚔️ Odysseus — the survivor. Clever, determined, and always finding a way home.

👑 Penelope — the steady heart. Loyal, patient, and stronger than people realize.

🦉 Athena — the strategist. The person with the plan before everyone else catches up.

🌱 Telemachus — the seeker. Learning who you are and stepping into your own power.

✨ Circe — the powerful one. Independent, mysterious, and unforgettable.

🌊 Calypso — the dreamer. Creating your own world and protecting your peace.

🔥 Antinous — the force of nature. Ambitious, bold, and impossible to ignore.

Reblog with your character 👇

I want to see which one everyone connects with.

[leahtwilliams]

we made it work again this year. groceries cost more. gas costs more. insurance costs more. still no raise to match it. and still, every august, we find a way. i'm tired of that being the whole story. this year i'm asking for help turning my classroom into a reading haven. wrote about it here 👇

https://open.substack.com/pub/leahtwilliams/p/we-made-it-work-again-this-year-im?r=65zw6l&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

#teachers #education #literacy #classroom #fundraising

[leahtwilliams]

Every Teacher Has One Belief They’re Embarrassed They Held. Here’s Mine.

Twenty years of thinking I knew better. Turns out I didn’t.

[leahtwilliams]

A small trick that costs nothing extra: choose no rush shipping on Amazon, earn a credit, spend it on an indie author. New post on why this matters more than people think: 👇

https://open.substack.com/pub/leahtwilliams/p/why-i-buy-books-ill-never-read?r=65zw6l&utm_medium=ios

[leahtwilliams]

Every story begins with someone deciding to turn the first page.

This July, that's a little easier.

💙 Sweet Like Sugar Cane is FREE.

📚 Every other ebook is 50% OFF during the Smashwords Sale.

If you enjoy stories about family, identity, friendship, mystery, resilience, and the Caribbean, I'd love for you to discover mine.

Browse them all:

https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/Leah_T._Williams

[leahtwilliams]

Sweet Like Sugar Cane is FREE on Smashwords all of July. 🌴

1980s St. Kitts. A girl named Gwen. A story I wrote for every Caribbean girl who never saw herself in a book.

The rest of my catalog is 50% off too. Sale ends July 31.

👉 https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1773590

[leahtwilliams]

it’s bet awards night and black excellence deserves to be on the page just as much as it deserves to be on that stage 🏆🖤

lauryn hill getting her living legend award tonight. teyana taylor. cardi b. all of it. culture’s biggest night doing what it always does — reminding us that black people have always been the main event.

these 7 books know that too. black culture isn’t the backdrop in any of them. it’s the whole world.

save this list. drop your pick below 👇

#betawards #blackbooks #yabooks #blackexcellence #booktok

[leahtwilliams]

I’m an English teacher on summer break and I got tired of watching kids fall behind every summer. I built a free 30-day reading challenge to fix it. Your kid picks the book. I handle the rest. Starts July 1.

leahtwilliams.net/summer-reading-challenge

[leahtwilliams]

Your child said they'd read more this summer. Here's the sign they needed. 📚

A free 30-Day Summer Reading Challenge starts July 1 for middle grade readers ages 8 and up. No assigned books. No worksheets. Just daily reading prompts, weekly reflection journals, and a curated book list of amazing reads.

10–20 minutes a day. Their book. Their pace. Completely free.

Sign up at leahtwilliams.net/summer-reading-challenge

[leahtwilliams]

Books I wish existed when I was growing up in St. Kitts:

A book where the Caribbean girl is the whole story. Not the sidekick. Not the cultural backdrop. The whole point.

A book where leaving the island for America is the complicated, beautiful, grief-filled thing it actually is and not just a happy ending.

A book where first love in the Caribbean matters as much as first love anywhere else. Because it does.

I waited long enough. Then I wrote them.

Neither Out Far Nor In Deep. Sweet Like Sugar Cane. Where the Guava Tree Stands.

www.leahtwilliams.net

[leahtwilliams]

janet jackson writing poetry just to survive her own grief. tupac being lucky — complicated and charming and trying so hard to be better than where he came from. regina king doing what regina king always does. maya angelou’s words coming out of a girl’s mouth like they were always hers.

a slow burn love story on a mail truck through south central that somehow became one of the most important black love stories ever put on screen. the critics were wrong. they were always wrong.

these 7 books carry that same energy — the poetry that saves you, the love that sneaks up on you when you weren’t ready, the black girl voice that refuses to go quiet no matter how much the world asks it to.

if you haven’t seen it stop everything and go watch it tonight. if you have — you already know why this list exists.

drop your pick below 🖤

#poeticjustice #blackbooks #yabooks #blackgirlmagic #booktok

[leahtwilliams]

Kadeem has been trying to fit in somewhere since before Neither Out Far Nor In Deep even starts.

His mother sends him to St. Kitts not to punish him -- even though it feels that way -- but because she can see something in him that needs an island to unlock it.

His grandfather picks him up from the airport and doesn't say much. The truck smells like engine oil and soil.

Kadeem is annoyed. The island is patient.

Neither Out Far Nor In Deep by Leah T. Williams. www.leahtwilliams.net

[leahtwilliams]

Caribbean diaspora books that I would put in your hands right now:

Breath, Eyes, Memory by Edwidge Danticat -- because the weight Caribbean mothers carry deserves to be on the page.

Annie John by Jamaica Kincaid -- because growing up on an island and knowing you will have to leave it has a specific grief that almost no book captures.

Where the Guava Tree Stands by Leah T. Williams -- because Mina left St. Kitts when the green cards arrived and wrote down everything she couldn't say out loud.

That last one is mine. The first two are why I write.

www.leahtwilliams.net

[leahtwilliams]

Hot take from a middle school English teacher with 20 years in the classroom:

The kids who say they hate reading have almost never been given a book where someone thinks the way they think.

That is not a reading problem. That is a representation problem. And it has a solution.

Words Were the Enemy by Leah T. Williams -- for the kid who thinks English class isn't for them. www.leahtwilliams.net

[leahtwilliams]

Black Girls Day Off is not a history lesson.

It's three best friends who skip school to honor a real day -- October 11th, Black Girls Day Off, dedicated to the mental health and wellbeing of Black girls -- and end up somewhere none of them could have prepared for.

Maya practiced her sick voice for three days. Her mom pressed her hand to Maya's forehead, narrowed her eyes, and said: "Whatever you three get into today, please be safe."

Some moms just know everything and love you anyway.

Black Girls Day Off by Leah T. Williams -- available in print and ebook everywhere books are sold. www.leahtwilliams.net