The Brooklyn Caribbean Literary Festival (BCLF) has capped off its 2026 edition by naming Dominican writer and documentary producer Zephrine Royer the winner of the prestigious BCLF Elizabeth Nunez Award for Writers in the Caribbean. The announcement was made official on Saturday, September 12, during the festival’s annual Short Fiction Story Celebration, held this year in Brooklyn, New York, from September 9 to 13 under the overarching theme “One Hand Don’t Clap: Caribbean Worlds, Writing Towards the Future.”
Royer took home the top honor for her evocative short story *River Mouth*, joining fellow Dominican writer Kwame Labassiere, who earned a finalist spot for the parallel BCLF Elizabeth Nunez Caribbean-American Writer’s Prize for his work *What Cannot Be Done Alone*. The dual representation from the small Caribbean island drew glowing praise from BCLF Founder and Executive Director Marsha Massiah during the award ceremony.
“Dominica has been the silent dark horse in this race from day one,” Massiah remarked. “I don’t know what is taking place in Dominica, whatever writing incentives is happening in that little ecosystem there, but it’s absolutely spectacular, and we can’t get enough of it.”
Currently based in Martinique, Royer has built a creative career deeply rooted in Caribbean storytelling and identity. Prior to this win, her fiction earned two longlist placements for the Commonwealth Short Story Prize: *Alé-Viré* in 2024 and *Witness* earlier this year. *River Mouth* marks her first recognition from BCLF, and the award spotlights her growing reputation as a leading voice in contemporary Caribbean literature.
Founded to center Caribbean literary work and indigenous storytelling traditions, the Brooklyn-based festival launched its short fiction contest in 2019 as the Emergent Writers Contest. A regional award for creators based in the Caribbean was added in 2020, responding to overwhelming interest from writers across the region. Today, the two linked prizes honor two cohorts of creators: one for writers living and working within the Caribbean, and one for Caribbean diaspora creators based abroad. The regional award, which Royer won, is open to writers born, raised, or holding nationality in any Caribbean nation who currently reside and work in the region. All entries are original short fiction pieces capped at 3,000 words, judged anonymously by a panel of established Caribbean authors. This year’s panel included celebrated authors Kevin Jared Hosein and Carol Mitchell, who highlighted the exceptional quality of 2026’s submitted work during the ceremony.
Both awards are named in honor of Dr. Elizabeth Nunez, a Trinidadian-American novelist and Distinguished Professor of English at Hunter College, CUNY, who spent decades advocating for underrepresented Caribbean and African-American writers throughout her career.
Unable to travel to Brooklyn to accept the award in person, Royer delivered her acceptance remarks via pre-recorded video, where she also read a standout excerpt from *River Mouth*. She shared that the story draws directly from her childhood growing up in Dominica, where she spent full moon nights gathering on a neighbor’s front steps to listen to elder community members share traditional local folktales. Those childhood stories included tales of a great-grandfather who confronted a *lajabless*, a neighbor who outsmarted a *soukouyan*, and a local figure who kept a *Moose*—a mythic small creature said to hatch from an egg and survive only on a diet of green bananas.
In her acceptance speech, Royer offered gratitude to her mother, who she credited with nurturing her lifelong love of storytelling, her sister who inspired the story’s central character Val, her beta reader Mel, Celeste Mohammed, and her fellow writers from the Bocas-Jacarandas Short Story Intensive. She closed her remarks in Kwéyòl, the French Creole language of the Eastern Caribbean: “Mèsi an pil, mèsi an chay,” which translates to “thank you very much, thank you so much.”
As this year’s award recipient, Royer receives a $1,750 USD cash prize, a custom BCLF trophy, branded festival merchandise, a curated collection of books from independent publisher Akashic Books, and a custom gift from stationery brand Moleskine. Additional professional opportunities include a feature episode on the BCLF *Cocoapod* podcast, an author profile and interview on the BCLF official website, and publication of her winning story in three prominent Caribbean literary platforms: MOKO Magazine, PREE, and Carib News.
Beyond her literary work, Royer holds an Associate’s degree in Modern French Literature and a PhD in Bilingual Education from the Université des Antilles. As a documentary producer, she has earned recognition as an IF/Then alumna, HotDocs Cross Currents fellow, Caribbean Film Academy fellow, Brown Girls Doc Mafia Black Director’s Fellow, and European Film Market Toolbox alumna.
The dual short fiction prizes are a core component of BCLF’s broader organizational mission: to narrow the gap between industry resources and opportunities for Caribbean writers, whose voices have historically been sidelined in mainstream global literary spaces, regardless of whether they create from the region or the diaspora.