15/04/2026
I’ve been told that this profile doesn’t fully capture who I am or what I am passionate about, so let this post serve as a reintroduction 😂
Long story short: I am a writer, poet, cultural practitioner, community advocate, and an aspiring librarian/archivist.
My writing career started in high school as a reporter for the St. John Tradewinds. Since then my writing has appeared in the V.I. Source, the V.I. Daily News and Destination Magazine. I’ve also pursued professional writing opportunities through my business Raven’s Quill, which primarily engages in grant writing.
My creative works include essays, poetry and short stories. I have a substack where I write about local culture, mental health, and more.
https://open.substack.com/pub/ravenphillips
One of my stories is included in the soon to be released V.I. Noir, edited by Tiphanie Yanique and Richard Georges. My poetry has appeared in the Caribbean Writer and Moko Magazine. Additionally, I have been the host of the Rhyme and Lime open mic poetry event in St. John since 2021. In 2025, I edited the poetry anthology, Like Salt and Wet Soil, which features over five years worth of original works shared at Rhyme and Lime. I greatly enjoy hosting poetry workshops, and have had the opportunity to share my works at both the BVI Literary Festival and the USVI Literary Festival and Book Fair.
Outside of my writing, I have been a Bamboula dancer since 2018. Bamboula is the ancestral dance of the Virgin Islands, and it is a blessing to be a steward of it. In 2022, I helped form the Coziah Dancers, a group dedicated to the preservation of Bamboula through performances, workshops, and scholarship. We have participated in multiple Dollar fo Dollar performances since our formation, and our 2025 performance was included as part of an exhibition at the The Postal Museums exhibit, Voices of Resistance: Slavery and Post in the Caribbean.
https://www.postalmuseum.org/visit-us/what-to-expect/exhibitions/voices-of-resistance/
I and one other member are also featured in the upcoming documentary Bamboula Eh Séa Yea, directed by Geron Richards.
Alongside the litany of performances and dance workshops I’ve done over the years, in 2025 I was able to utilize a grant from the VI Council on the Arts (through funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the National Endowment for the Arts in Washington, D.C.) to host a series of free Bamboula workshops in St. John titled, Bamboula: V.I. History in Motion.
I’ve always believed that you ought to use your skills in service of community, and that is reflected in the leadership roles I engage in. I have been a board member for creative non-profit VI Crawl for several years, and have co-hosted their project The Fish Fry for 3 election seasons. The Fish Fry aims to engage in civic education for all ages in the Virgin Islands, and interview political candidates for the benefit of the voting public. Through this role I was interviewed by WTJX, and I appeared as a panelist for their 2024 Election Night coverage.
I most recently took on the role of Director of Programming for the St. John Film Society, where I intend to continue their mission of screening independent films that celebrate the human spirit with a focus on the Caribbean.
Excuse the length of this post. May I gradually chronicle the things I do moving forward so I’m not writing essays about myself every year 😭😭😭
