When the photographer Naila Ruechel proposed a trip documenting religious practices in Jamaica — the country where we were both born — she set out to “offer a broader understanding of the spiritual lives of Jamaican people; a Jamaica unseen by the average visitor.” Starting from Kingston, Ruechel charted a course through the rich mix of Christian and Afro-centric traditions, from Obeah to the Revival church to Rastafarianism. These images document that voyage.

Seeking the Spirited, Mystical Jamaica Tourists Don’t See

Nicole Dennis-Benn interviews Francesca Ekwuyasi, author of Butter Honey Pig Bread, for Mosaic Literary Magazine feature

FRANCESCA EKWUYASI: INTERVIEW

I learned very early that to be an immigrant in this country meant I didn’t have the luxury of choosing what I wanted...

The Burden Of Being A First-Generation Immigrant

Before the arrival of the barrel, there was the sky...

Barrel Of Love, An Immigrant Story

It’s the day after my appearance in Lagos, Nigeria, at the Aké Arts & Book Festival. I scroll through my

Nicole Dennis-Benn Finds Her Voice Through Fashion

The women in my family became mothers early. It took me longer to understand my own mind...

I Wanted to Be a Mom. I Didn’t Want to Be Pregnant.

She was staring at one of the Miss Jamaica Universe contestants on television. I thought I recognised her...

The Day I Learnt to Accept that My Dark Skin was Beautiful

On our first date, I dared to give her a lingering hug on a crowded subway platform on West Fourth Street, an unusual display of physical affection on my part, which I blamed on the wine. It was the start of spring, the city in bloom...

Who's Allowed to Hold Hands?

You’d be hard pressed to find a writer who wishes to shirk this responsibility. But, there’s discrepancy among us about...

What It Means To Be A Writer In The Time Of Trump

We were outlaws. Twice we had been expelled from a womb: first as boys, then as women. Jamaica had been calling itself a country for only 50 years when we converged on...

We Deh Yah!

Speak up, darling. I cannot hear you," a woman named Goddess prompted me on the telephone. She had no hint...

Resistance, Desire, and History: The Story of My Dreadlocks

ays ago an interviewer asked me how Delores — one of the main characters in my debut novel, Here Comes the Sun — could be so cruel and unapologetic in how she treats her daughters, Margot and Thandi. It wasn’t the first time I’ve heard the question. 

Innocence Is A Privilege: Black Children Are Not Allowed To Be Innocent In America 

My father left Jamaica when I was three. We were practically strangers until he suggested I live with him in America while attending college...

Coming Out as a Writer

Ernest Hemingway said, “The writer’s job is to tell the truth." You’d be hard pressed to find a writer who wishes to shirk this responsibility. But, there’s discrepancy among us about what “truth” really means... 

t was a cool November morning in 2008 when I walked out of my Brooklyn apartment to vote for the first time...

My First Visit to the Church of American Democracy

I was afraid to write her, Margot, the main protagonist in Here Comes the Sun. I come from a culture that contains a duality: People are polite and discreet about topics of sex and sexuality, but at the same time sexuality is woven seamlessly into our music, and glitters and sparks in every innuendo, every sway of the hips, every stroke of the chin...

Breaking Taboos and Loving the Characters We Fear

At 10 years old I was called into the living room by my mother and my grandmother... 

A Woman-Child in Jamaica

When my sister and I were left alone, we put on my mother's dresses, slipped on her high-heel shoes, powdered our faces, and added headscarves to pretend we had long hair. In the mirror we posed—our bony arms jutting out from the elbows above our narrow hips, lips puckered, lashes fluttering like the wings of the flying cockroaches in the cupboards.

Growing Up With Miss Jamacia

Mecca Jamilah Sullivan’s collection unfolds like a letter bestowed by an elder who has kept certain secrets at bay until the reader is old enough, mature enough to receive it, appreciate it. With language that Rick Moody deems as “Faulknerian,” Blue Talk and Love is written with the voices of the people that echo the reality of New York City, namely Harlem, and its inhabitants...

Mecca Jamilah Sullivan: Interview 

Just outside, a cherry tree bloomed in the schoolyard; bright red cherries ripened then burst in the sun, some rotted on weighted limbs before their time. “Janet Jackson?” my friend Antoinette asked as she began to chew on her beef patty and coco bread...

Shifting Selves: Holding Two Flags 

Faye moved quickly, though her movements were strategic, seamless in a way that appeared as practiced as a fire drill. For months she planned it.  She packed her bags, stuffing essential items that were already sorted—documents with notary signatures, her Jamaican passport with her green card and social security card tucked safely inside it, her youngest son’s birth certificate, his passport, his school records, health records—everything he might need over there, everything with the name his father gave him, the name she stood by, because there was no other name...

What's In A Name 

At Old Fort Craft Park Delores links hands with the flushed face men in floral shirts who are too polite to decline, and the women in broad straw hats whose thin lips fix in frightened smiles.  Before the tourists pass Delores’s stall, she listens to the prices the other higglers quote them—prices that make the tourists politely decline and walk away...

What's For Sale 

“Some of my strongest memories of place today are still my memories of Nigeria. In my mind I can still see the road to my primary school, and I can tell you the placement of the headmistress’s office, and the patch of dusty earth where we stood for morning assemblies, or the lush green field on which we tumbled during breaks. I can tell you where the tamarind and ice cream vendors used to stand...

Chinelo Okparanta-Interview

"I wanted and expected her to not go very far in the competition. I'd written her off as 'an uptown singer', good enough but able to have a moderate career because of privilege, because of Jamaica's only partially dismantled connection between what you get to do and how you look...

The Measure of A True Artiste

Ayana Mathis has an innocence about her that makes it hard for other writers to envy her success. Unlike other writers who list names of literary journals they’ve published in, Ayana quietly worked under the radar, and her first book has quickly become an overnight sensation...

Ayana Mathis: Interview 

It has been a week since the first story broke about my marriage to my beautiful wife, Emma Benn, at Silver Sands Villa in Duncans Trelawney, a parish in Jamaica.  In one week, our lives have changed...

The Impact of Living Out Loud as a Gay Jamaican

"You ready?” she whispers, swimming up behind me to encircle her arms around my waist. “Yeah, I’m ready.” We smile at each other, aware in that moment that we’re about to do something big, bigger than us. “Come on guys, save the kiss for later,” someone says...

Writing by Nicole

Home - Writing

2023

New York Times

Seeking the Spirited, Mystical Jamaica Tourists Don’t See

2022

Mosaic Literary Magazine

FRANCESCA EKWUYASI: INTERVIEW

2019

BUZZFEED

The Burden Of Being A First-Generation Immigrant

2019

The Rumpus

Barrel Of Love, An Immigrant Story

Stay up to date with Nicole Dennis-Benn
By subscribing to her mailing list!

Nicole Dennis-Benn

Writing by Nicole

Home - Writing

2023

New York Times

Seeking the Spirited, Mystical Jamaica Tourists Don’t See

2022

Mosaic Literary Magazine

FRANCESCA EKWUYASI: INTERVIEW

2019

BUZZFEED

The Burden Of Being A First-Generation Immigrant

2019

The Rumpus

Barrel Of Love, An Immigrant Story

Stay up to date with Nicole Dennis-Benn By subscribing to her mailing list!

Nicole Dennis-Benn

Stay up to date with Nicole Dennis-Benn
By subscribing to her mailing list!