iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Shivanee Ramlochan @novelniche.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Happy Ninth Birthday, Everyone Knows I Am a Haunting. You named yourself. You let me pull your title out of you like a long, sharp bone. I understand myself so much better since you were born. Next year, I can't wait to give you a dark companion. #EveryoneKnowsIAmaHaunting

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Shivanee Ramlochan @novelniche.bsky.social · 08/06/2026

"The midden witch has bled at ground level, like all of us." Yesterday, all I wanted was the rain, and Fiona Benson's Midden Witch. I wrote about it, at my Substack. novelniche.substack.com/p/sunday-poe...

The book cover of Fiona Benson's Midden Witch, held up by a brown hand, against a green background of foliage.

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Shivanee Ramlochan @novelniche.bsky.social · 15/01/2026

Books aren’t pills. But I do need them like blood. This is the first of my Sick Reading posts, where I write about being ill, and the books that have saved my life. First, @nataliediaz.bsky.social's Postcolonial Love Poem (@graywolfpress.bsky.social). 🔗 novelniche.substack.com/p/sick-readi...

A light pink graphic with white pills on the bottom border, reading 'www.novelniche.substack.com presents Sick Reading'.

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Shivanee Ramlochan @novelniche.bsky.social · 12/01/2026

Beginning 2026 with the official announcement of a new MM romance from @joannachambers.bsky.social = a pocket of bliss to take into this week! Joanna writes so beautifully, and with such care, about men in love. This book is going to be exactly what I need in February; I can already feel it.

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Shivanee Ramlochan @novelniche.bsky.social · 03/10/2025

Happy Eighth Birthday, Everyone Knows I Am a Haunting! I love you. You saved me. You kept me dangerous. You remind me to be wild. #EveryoneKnowsIAmaHaunting

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Shivanee Ramlochan @novelniche.bsky.social · 25/09/2025

Our times are tough, but I have to believe that our poems are (radically, tenderly) tougher. Join me on my two-part workshop for The Writing School, and unstopper the truths your poems most long to say: thewritingschool.co.uk/unstopper-th...

A 4:5 dimension graphic containing details for the workshop Unstopper the Unsayable: Writing Tough Truths in Poems, taught by Shivanee Ramlochan on September 28th and October 5th, 2025, via Zoom.

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Shivanee Ramlochan @novelniche.bsky.social · 18/09/2025

In greenest gratitude for a new poem, "The Meaning of Trees", to branch out as today's selection for poets.org's Poem-a-Day. Profound thanks to Nathalie for inviting my work into her thoughtful, seeing curations this month. Thank you, dear trees, love you bad-bad 🌳🌲🌴 poets.org/poem/meaning...

poets.org

The Meaning of Trees

Split the trunk of an ancient one.

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Shivanee Ramlochan @novelniche.bsky.social · 02/09/2025

Extremely excited to read Nazaret's debut! Congratulations!

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Shivanee Ramlochan @novelniche.bsky.social · 21/05/2025

🔥 Photograph by Shaun Rambaran.

An image of Shivanee Ramlochan dressed in red, pointing to an off-screen audience.

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Shivanee Ramlochan @novelniche.bsky.social · 01/05/2025

I'm beyond elated (electrified) to have interviewed @alisonsealysmith.bsky.social for the newest issue of @caribbeanbeat.bsky.social. Alison's voice as Storm/Ororo Munroe has carried so many of us through maelstroms. *She* is just as remarkable. Read online: www.caribbean-beat.com/issue-188/th...

A photo of Alison Sealy-Smith, seated before an artwork of Storm/Ororo Munroe by Nathan Szerdy. Photo taken by Dylan Carter.

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Shivanee Ramlochan @novelniche.bsky.social · 22/04/2025

Bring your queerest vibes to this @arvonfoundation.bsky.social Bi+ Poetry online masterclass with me! 📆 September 23rd, 2025 🕖 7-9 PM BST / 2-4 PM AST 💸 £40, or ≈ $360 TTD, or ≈ $53 USD 🌐 via Zoom webinar 🔗 bit.ly/bipluspoetry... Claim the bi+ poems that are your own. #BiPoems

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Shivanee Ramlochan @novelniche.bsky.social · 12/04/2025

What a deep pleasure it will be to be with Anu + Alycia's words.

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Shivanee Ramlochan @novelniche.bsky.social · 12/03/2025

400 witches! *elated broom swish, potion pour and toad kiss* Thank you for being with me on Substack, where I'm now training my attention on making my infrequent updates more regular and sustained, fuelled by inquiry, curiosity, rage, and how we persist--

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Shivanee Ramlochan @novelniche.bsky.social · 16/02/2025

January Reads: A Knife in the Heart of Being Known A detailed, non-review-related, personal public diary of the books I've read the month previous. I talk about what it feels like to be revealed, utterly, to yourself -- and how one January book above all has shown me how much I've left to learn.

Five books on a wooden plank background, framed by foliage and a red flower.

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Shivanee Ramlochan @novelniche.bsky.social · 07/02/2025

I know. It’s not what you expect from me. Herein, I unearth a poem that's almost a decade old, talk about two of my major tells, and ask you to join me for a week of love and relationships at @arvonfoundation.bsky.social with @ellafrears.bsky.social novelniche.substack.com/p/flank-and-...

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Shivanee Ramlochan @novelniche.bsky.social · 05/02/2025

In a ragged, treacherous world, I'm giving thanks for Han Kang and Deborah Smith. How astonishing, the gift of Kang in her own language. How remarkable, the conduit of Deborah Smith to bring her to so many of us, in English. I don't think I can ever stop being grateful. Not ever.

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Shivanee Ramlochan @novelniche.bsky.social · 03/02/2025

Writing romance is such a skillful navigation of desire + restraint, I remind myself as I reread passages across @joannachambers.bsky.social's Enlightenment series. There's something so clear + propulsive about Joanna's prose that makes holding its intensities of m/m love truly heady, irresistible.

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Shivanee Ramlochan @novelniche.bsky.social · 31/12/2024

You should read A Map to the Door of No Return by Dionne Brand if you are ready for your life to change. This is history. This is Black imagination. This is radical cartography. These are, as the book’s subtitle says, ‘notes on belonging.’

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Shivanee Ramlochan @novelniche.bsky.social · 18/12/2024

My poem "Plumeria", selected by Rajiv Mohabir and published in MANOA Journal, has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. In many ways, it's not an easy poem to take. I'm so grateful it found a home here.

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Shivanee Ramlochan @novelniche.bsky.social · 17/12/2024

Ten Days of 2025 Caribbean Books I'm Wildly Excited to Read - Day Three! I adored, without restraint, @claireadamwriter.bsky.social's Golden Child. Love Forms, her next, is *the* intense novel of 2025 I need. No one does emotional difficulty and distress like this. www.faber.co.uk/journal/fabe...

The book cover of Claire Adam's Love Forms.

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Shivanee Ramlochan @novelniche.bsky.social · 12/12/2024

Ten Days of 2025 Caribbean Books I'm Wildly Excited to Read - Day Two! @camilleuadams.bsky.social's How to be Unmothered feels like it already has my heart. I know I'll be hurt *open* by this memoir, by its truth, and I welcome it. I want its uncompromising weight: restlessbooks.org/bookstore/ho...

The book cover of Camille U. Adams' How to be Unmothered.

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Shivanee Ramlochan @novelniche.bsky.social · 09/12/2024

Ten Days of 2025 Caribbean Books I'm Wildly Excited to Read - Day One! @laurenfsharma.bsky.social has written one of the most beautiful, moving novels I've *ever* read, so believe me when I say I can't wait for her Casualties of Truth, @groveatlantic.bsky.social: groveatlantic.com/book/casualt...

The book cover of Lauren Francis-Sharma's Casualties of Truth.

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Shivanee Ramlochan @novelniche.bsky.social · 30/11/2024

From now til the end of November, each day I'll share a Caribbean book that's made me. @dboodoofortune.bsky.social's Doe Songs are poems I return to over and again, not because I use them to define the world, but because the world can be read *through* them, their feral eloquence, their greenheart.

The book cover of Doe Songs, by Danielle Boodoo-Fortuné

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Shivanee Ramlochan @novelniche.bsky.social · 28/11/2024

From now til the end of November, each day I'll share a Caribbean book that's made me. Palace of the Peacock by Wilson Harris taught me how to read without borders. How to obey no prescription or directive but the hinterland. When I need to account myself wild and unknowable, I come here again. 🇬🇾

Book cover of Palace of the Peacock by Wilson Harris.

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Shivanee Ramlochan @novelniche.bsky.social · 26/11/2024

From now til the end of November, each day I'll share a Caribbean book that's made me. The Best of All Possible Worlds by @drkarenlord.bsky.social is visionary work, asking the largest of questions through the most intricate, devoted means. Lord is a true weaver of myths, realities, imaginings. 🇧🇧

Book cover of The Best of All Possible Worlds by Karen Lord.

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Shivanee Ramlochan @novelniche.bsky.social · 25/11/2024

From now til the end of November, each day I'll share a Caribbean book that's shaped me. Golden Child, by Claire Adam, harrows me. An unsettling, achingly real novel about two young boys born into a society that prizes education to deathly ends, this is Trinidad on the page that hurts, blisters. 🇹🇹

The book cover of Golden Child, by Claire Adam.

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Shivanee Ramlochan @novelniche.bsky.social · 25/11/2024

From now til the end of November, each day I'll share a Caribbean book that's shaped me. I no longer view Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys with the uncritical adoration I felt for it in my teens, but it remains rooted in my understanding of a primordial defiance, a bone-deep revolt against tyranny. 🇩🇲

A first edition book cover of Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys.

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Shivanee Ramlochan @novelniche.bsky.social · 19/11/2024

*slides into your d(angerous) m(issive)s* Won't you join @ellafrears.bsky.social, Daniel Sluman + I on this Arvon online Love Poetry course? Weird, wondrous, wild - all types of poems, on all kinds of love, are welcome here. We can't wait to read your raw hearts. 🫀🫀🫀 www.arvon.org/writing-cour...

Ella Frears and Shivanee Ramlochan on a graphic, with the text 'Love Poetry Online Writing Week 10 - 14 February 2025'.

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Shivanee Ramlochan @novelniche.bsky.social · 18/11/2024

Reading the Caribbean means you read the world. I'm reflecting on what this mantra of mine means, especially now, when so many Caribbean writers occupy global favour. If we ever fall out of it, I want us to remember we are the centre of our worlds. We reside within us, and have always made story.

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Shivanee Ramlochan @novelniche.bsky.social · 12/10/2023

Here's "Matikoor", written in honour of the deep love I have for wild, ungovernable desire, in secretly dangerous-safe spaces. The matikoor was one of the first sites in which I became aware of women loosening their obediences, channelling their hips, tongues, hearts towards their own true freedom.

Shivanee Ramlochan
Matikoor

Here is where I want you, unhidden
by the wedding moon,
fat as a secret bride spilling with stolen fruit. Here is where
I press you, segmented sticky into the flanks
of a Julie mango, into the garden ground of my mouth.

Here is where I have brought you
to flail, to fight, to writhe, to die
on my tongue or else to live forever.

There is nowhere the eyes of the tribunal
men won’t find us. We dance
as though death is coming
for us, as though the tremble
of an execution
waits in the noose
of my brown arms around your brown neck,
your brown nose bridging my brown nose,
wedding sweat on my brow and between my breasts.

O, I work closer to the lit deya of you,
the last flambeau on the coastal road of you,
the hot cutlass goldening in the village sun of you,
the rippling, robust certainty of you,
your skin polished with the two thousand
and twenty two years of your survival.

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Shivanee Ramlochan @novelniche.bsky.social · 07/10/2023

I have another book of poems firing within me.

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