Family Album

Poems by Ian McDonald

Selected and edited by Robin McDonald

This book of heartfelt poems from the pen of one of the Caribbean region’s leading poets, Ian McDonald, reflects his love of life and family.

His beloved wife Mary is the muse whose inspirational influence can be sensed throughout the work’s pages. 

McDonald, historian, as well as poet, invites the reader to meet his cherished family members:  from ancestors long past to parents, wife, children and grandchildren full of life.

Ian McDonald, author of the Hummingbird Tree and 12 books of poetry, is the holder of an Honorary Doctorate of Letters from The University of the West Indies, winner of the Guyana Prize of Literature for four years and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature since 1970. He was born in Trinidad in 1933 and lives in Guyana. He is married to Mary and has three sons.

Cover painting by Zoey McDonald

ISBN 978-976-8244-58-1

126 pages

Hardcover

Fully illustrated

Available on Amazon

Financially Wise, Financially Strong

Anyone can achieve financial peace of mind and build wealth, and it does not start with being an investment expert. Building wealth begins with learning about money, empowering yourself to make wise financial decisions every day, and navigating the avoidable pitfalls.

Financially Wise Financially Strong provides you with a roadmap to create enduring financial strength over a lifetime by performing six Actions. You learn why each is necessary and how they connect to produce a foundation to create wealth. The Actions focus on practical knowledge and techniques that keep it simple, enabling you to apply the principles consistently and effectively.

Whether you are beginning your career or seeking stability, Financially Wise Financially Strong will teach you how to be confident with money, develop good money habits, and achieve financial success.

Kerri Maharaj has more than two decades of professional experience in the financial services industry, during which he has held senior positions in various companies. In his early years, he made several financial mistakes; therefore, he understands how a lack of knowledge could create a barrier to a better financial future. He believes passionately in the power of financial education and that such education should be practical and accessible to all.

ISBN 978-976-9729-10-0

346 Pages

Paperback

Available on Amazon and in select bookstores in Trinidad.

A Different Energy

A Different Energy stands as a testament to the enduring wisdom and strength of Caribbean women. It sounds a call for a more diverse, inclusive and equitable development of one of the world’s most male-dominated domains: the oil and gas industry.
Over the last decade, as global energy has become hyper-focused on the Southern Caribbean, the role and opinions of local women have too often been overlooked. In this compelling, first-of-its-kind book, award-winning lawyer-turned-writer Celeste Mohammed remedies that omission.
In powerful, eye-opening portraits of eight Trini, Surinamese and Guyanese women who are employed in the Caribbean oil and gas industry, Mohammed uses a range of styles to keep the gender conversation refreshingly candid, often humorous, and always thought-provoking.
With a voice both earnest and confiding, intellectual and intimate, this book’s commentary and analysis extract from the women’s stories lessons for any woman seeking to defy odds, shatter stereotypes, and forge paths in a business culture which underestimates her.

Celeste Mohammed is a Trinidadian lawyer-turned-writer and the author of “Pleasantview”(Ig, Jacaranda, 2021; Ouida, 2022) which won the 2022 OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature, the 2022 CLMP Firecracker Award for Fiction, and was a finalist for the UK Society of Authors McKitterick Prize for Fiction.
Celeste holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Lesley University, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Her short stories have won numerous awards including a 2018 PEN/Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize.
A Different Energy is Celeste’s Non-Fiction debut.

Published by Words Matter Communications
ISBN: 978-976-8291-94-3
206 pages
Fully illustrated in colour

Criminal Bench Book For Barbados, Belize and Guyana

Criminal justice is essential for peace, stability, and sustainable economic and societal development. Criminal justice systems that function fairly, efficiently, effectively, and expeditiously are integral to public trust and confidence in the administration of justice, and to institutional legitimacy. 

The constitutional values and standards of the protection of the law, due process, and a fair hearing, taken in the context of rule of law obligations that apply to the Judiciary, demand that all of these performance standards are consistently met for the benefit of all court users. There are also ethical standards that apply to the discharge of the judicial function, such as equality, competence, diligence, and promptitude, and which impose institutional and individual duties and responsibilities for which judicial officers and Judiciaries are accountable.
This criminal bench book has been completed in fourteen months, from conception to publication. Substantively, it can contribute to judicial officers meeting both the qualitative and quantitative standards that they are constitutionally and ethically compelled to uphold. Institutionally, it is an invaluable resource for the three states that it is designed for, as well as for all Caribbean jurisdictions with similar laws and practices. Indeed, this bench book improves access to justice for a wide range of persons, because it can also be easily used by attorneys and citizens as a baseline guide for legal principles and procedural best practices.
The process adopted, and as described below, has sought to make sure that each jurisdiction, through its appointed judicial officers and court librarians, has had the full responsibility for their jurisdictional content and accuracy of materials. This inclusive, collaborative, and iterative process intends to ensure that nuances that are unique to each state are covered, and as well to reap the benefits in a single publication of comparative content.

Published by The Caribbean Association of Judicial Officers (CAJO)
ISBN Hardcover: 978-976-97063-0-9
ISBN E-Book: 978-976-97063-1-6
588 pages

This publication is available electronically at the CAJO’s Reports and Publications webpage

From Bliss to Chaos to Understanding

From Bliss to Chaos to Understanding
My Cancer Journey
A Personal View Of My Life’s Struggles
By Vikki Ramdass
 

When Vikki Ramdass was into her first year of her doctoral thesis in 2018, she was diagnosed with Stage 1, triple-negative breast cancer. She had to stop her doctorate and undergo treatment, the journey From Bliss, to Chaos, to Understanding that this memoir describes.
Many Trinidadians know Vikki through her extensive charitable work.  True to Mahatma Gandhi’s adage “Be the change that you wish to see in the world”, she represented Trinidad and Tobago, through Lions International in several Caribbean countries and is the holder of twenty gold medals from charitable walks. She was bestowed the Mere Desh Committee Award for Community Service for Indian Arrival Day in 2012 and the National Youth Award for Volunteerism by the Ministry of Gender, Youth and Child Development in 2014.
After her breast cancer diagnosis, Vikki became an advocate for breast cancer survivors. She contributed articles on survivorship with “Elephants and Tea”, a US-based online magazine to help adolescent and young adults with cancer. Amazed at the support that she received over the years of writing, she has published From Bliss, to Chaos, to Understanding to provide comfort to cancer patients, survivors and caretakers in the future.


ISBN 978-976-8244-56-7
40 pages
Fully illustrated in colour

Carmody Road

A Memoir by Robin McDonald

Growing Up in St. Augustine, Trinidad, W.I.

This charming book is part three in a series of memoirs of the McDonald family of Trinidad, after “Beloved” and “Archie”.
Here, Thelma’s and Archie’s daughter Robin digs deep into her treasured childhood where she brings to vibrant life a loving family of many interests whose days were filled with fascinating encounters and experiences of a time gone-by enjoyed to the full with friends, neighbours and people you just met. One gets a lively glimpse of the joys and sadnesses, the tests and tribulations, trials and triumphs which in those days were so much more person-to-person lived than they are in this age of electronic relationships.  Here she reconstructs the neighbourhood of St. Augustine during the 40s and 50s – creating a pictorial map as your guide. The book is also interspersed with some of her brother Ian’s vivid and heartfelt poems.
So join Robin in her re-discovery of a microcosm in time and place that has all but disappeared.

ISBN: 978-976-8244-52-9
218 pages
Fully illustrated in black and white

Order here on Amazon

Unlocking HR/IR Potential

Contemporary Perspectives on Employment and Labour Relations in Trinidad & Tobago

Courtney Arthur Mc Nish shares his contemporary Human Resource Management and Industrial Relations perspective on a variety of issues impacting today’s workplace society: its culture, practices and processes.
Having written well over 100 articles, published in print media across Trinidad and Tobago, he has carefully collated 14 chapters in this book, wherein he expresses opinions and offers workable recommendations and solutions for the HR professional.
Building on his vast experience of advocacy, equity and best practice, particularly gained from his labour law practice, McNish selected 103 articles for publication in this book. He also provided a special chapter discussing and analysing real-life case studies that HR professionals will find relevant and useful.


Courtney Arthur Mc Nish is an experienced, professional HR Consultant and IR Consultant/Advocate, practicing in the Caribbean Human Resource environment for over 35 years. He is the holder of a Bachelor of Laws Degree (University of London) and a Masters of Law Degree (University of the West Indies, Cavehill). He achieved his Associate Degree in Strategic Human Resource Management (Babson College, Boston, USA), and also holds a National Diploma in Personnel & Industrial Relations (Cipriani College of Labour & Cooperative Studies).
Courtney is the Chief Executive Officer and Principal Consultant of Human Resource Technologies Ltd., where he manages an impressive portfolio of large private and public sector clients. Prior to this, he held numerous strategic HR positions in the corporate sector.

Published by HR Technologies Ltd.
ISBN 978-976-8291-62-2 (softcover), 978-976-8291-63-9 (e-book)
280 pages