Born in the U.S., Kristine Simelda has resided on of the Eastern Caribbean island of Dominica since 1995. Although she has worn many caps during her lifetime—daughter, wife, mother, artist, florist, horse trainer, gallery owner, and restaurateur—she currently lives on a smallholding on the edge of the rainforest where she writes and champions organic farming.

As an independent scholar of Caribbean culture, Kristine’s focus has been to honestly record the experiences of cross-cultural living per empathy, engagement, and respectful appropriation. She has written and published three adult novels, and a novella for young adult while living in “paradise.” Her debut novel, A Face in the River, a fictionalized memoir, was first published by her imprint, River Ridge Press, Dominica, in 2015. The sequel, River of Fire, overflowing with action and adventure, followed in 2016. The Young Adult novella, Back to the River, completed the series in 2019. For Nobody Owns the Rainbow, an environmental morality tale/romance, she won the People’s Choice Award for Dominican Literary Artist of the Year in 2018. Rise Up, Sister, a 50-year saga of female friendship revolving around the music industry in Jamaica and the U.K., is her latest publication.

Kristine Simelda’s short stories have appeared in St Somewhere Journal; New African Journal of Politics, Culture and Conciousness; Jewels of the Caribbean; Poui: Cave Hill Journal of Creative Writing; The Caribbean American Heritage Literary Magazine; Interviewing the Caribbean; WomanSpeak; Caribbean Women’s New Voices, Emerging Perspectives; thrice on Akashic’s Duppy Thursday, in the Caribbean Folio of Anomaly Magazine, Issue 28; The Flying Crapaud Collective, 2020; and The Caribbean Writer, Vol. 34.

She is the co-founder of Waitukubuli Writers, a group of aspiring poets and writers base
in Dominica. Her website is: http://www.kristinesimelda.wordpress.com.