[Podcast] Tim Tim? Bwa Fik – 1st anniversary special (3/4)

Yé Moun La ! Let’s celebrate “Tim Tim? Bwa Fik!” first anniversary with a couple of updates with guests from season 1. Check out my discussion with Candi (@tennei), a fellow Caribbean romance reader I met on Twitter. She shares her perspective on the current state of Caribbean romance and its future.

With Tati Richardson (Romance in Colour podcast) – Tim Tim? Bwa Fik!

Yé Moun La ! I thought it would be interesting to look at what’s going on in the Black romance community in the United States. I invited author Tati Richardson from the Romance in Colour podcast. She just released her debut novel “The Build up”. She will give us her insight on the Black romance landscape in the US, the diversity her book brings to the Black romance narrative, and how being involved in a community is important. The last part of our discussion was about the cultural diversity behind the word Blackness. tatiannarichardson.com | @RichardWritesOn *** timtimbwafik.com timtimbwafik@gmail.com IG: @timtimbwafik *** Music: Yenki Vou – Meemee Nelzy (A/C: M.Nelzy/M. Nelzy)

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0:00 – 1:02: opening credits

1:03 – 2:30: intro

2:31 – 3:34: Candi’s self-introduction

3:35 – 7:43: her romance journey from Mills & Boon / Harlequin to Beverly Jenkins, contemporary Black romance, Caribbean romance

7:42 – 10:09: the happy ending debate to define romance + her first Caribbean romance novel (Rilzy Adams)

10:10 – 11:49: the struggle to find stories where Afrocaribbean characters are leads and not props

11:50 – 12:59: what she enjoys about Beverly Jenkins’s storytelling

13:00 – 15:09: her great-great-grand-father love story as an example of the kind of Caribbean romance that can be set in the 19th century/early 20th century

15:10 – 18:59: her take on which kind of tropes would work well with Caribbean romance

19:00 – 19:40: how French Caribbean romance usually features a Black woman with a White man

19:41 – 23:11: how the urban genre would work well with Caribbean romance + the importance of also writing about ordinary Black people

23:12 – 25:29: her cute meet-and-greet with her husband + the double standard mafia vs. ghetto

25:30 – 29:59: her research process to find more Caribbean romance novels

30:00 – 32:09: the algorithm issue that invisibilizes Caribbean romance + the interracial couple strategy

32:10 – 36:59: her hope for Caribbean romance to get more new releases, to get more visibility

37:00 – 40:34: her goal of promoting Caribbean romance throughout June for the #readcaribbean month

40:35 – 42:42: the risk that Caribbean romance gets highjacked by traditional publishers once it hits big

42:43 – 46:01: the bad reputation romance has in the Caribbean + why can’t Caribbean author write us being happy

46:02 – 51:01: the need to write love in a forward, honest but compassionate way like Beverly Jenkins does + encourage new authors to write about happiness

51:02 – 51:45: outro

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Eugenia O’Neal: vintage.caribbean

Joanne C. Hillhouse: jhohadli.wordpress.com

Rilzy Adams: rilzywrites.com

N.G Peltier: ngpeltier.com

Callie Browning: calliebrowning.com

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Music: Yenki Vou – Meemee Nelzy (A/C: M.Nelzy/M. Nelzy)