My view of the Caribbean is that we are a living future”
Amanda Choo Quan
Amanda is a Caribbeanist, Writer and Activist. She is Trinidadian Jamaican. In a world where people were colonized and their histories stolen, Amanda is reclaiming space, culture and traditions. She is writing the stories and think pieces that will (and are) reshaping our world. She won the 2020 Johnson and Amoy Achong Caribbean Writers Prize—one of the region’s most significant awards for emerging writers. Her work- the pieces I’ve read so far – centres around race, displacement and her homeland. Her writing appears in Harper’s Bazaar, NYLON, HuffPost, Caribbean Beat, Callaloo, and others.
I met Amanda at the University of the West Indies (Mona); where we both completed a Bachelor of Arts in Media and Communication through CARIMAC – the Caribbean Institute of Media and Communication (now the Caribbean School of Media and Communication). At the point of recording this, she is pursuing a PhD in Creative Writing at the University of Southern California. Amanda is a gifted writer and also pretty funny. Follow her on twitter at @amandacq and on Instagram at @amandachooquan
Listen to the episode as we talk about how she started writing (kinda by accident, kinda with intention), her upcoming plans, how – as a busy Millennial in therapy – she keeps it altogether and you’ll also hear why I am one of her biggest fans.
There is no reason why all of us have to invest in a certain Americanized idea of space and time and people, and even Blackness
Amanda Choo Quan
Skip Ahead:
- 07:41 : Could you have envisioned that this would be your life?
- 10:36 : Thoughts on the “power” of traditional media
- 14:12 : The making of a writer
- 18:19 : What would you want your legacy to be
- 19:15 : Imposter syndrome, confidence and everything in between
- 25:05 : The interviewer becomes the interviewee
- 27:10 : The writing process
- 31:51 : Centering the Caribbean and disrupting the status quo
- 35:51 : Why we need a critical framework
- 38:00 : The state of the world today, in one sentence
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