Welcome to the bookcase.

I'm your host, Shawna Richards, a sometime writer and a longtime reader.

I invite you to join me as we explore the bookcase and celebrate Virgin Islands authors and talent.

Each week on the bookcase, we'll introduce you to a local author and learn more about them and their work.

A storyteller lives in each of us, and I am so excited to give our homegrown storytellers a chance to tell their story.

Tonight's selection from the bookcase is the short story, Ripen.

And I'm honored to welcome its author, Ashley Moolenar Bernier.

Ashley, welcome to the bookcase.

Thank you so much for joining us this evening.

Thank you so much for having me.

I am so honored to be here.

So why don't you tell our audience a little bit about yourself.

So my name is Ashley-Ruth Bernier.

I am a seventh generation Virgin Islander.

I grew up on Saint Thomas with my grandmother, historian Ruth Moolenar, and a big family of of aunts and uncles and my mom.

Who were willing to pass on a lot of my V.I.

Culture.

I graduated from All Saints Cathedral School in St. Thomas and went to college in the States.

I returned to Saint Thomas to teach at Gladys Abraham Elementary School for nine years, and life brought my husband and my children and I to North Carolina.

And we've been here for about ten years now.

So you talk about your very rich family history.

Did your mom encourage you to write?

Where did this passion for writing stem from?

So my mother always read for she always read to me.

And that's the best way to get children.

Reading and writing is to to read to them and encourage them to make up their own stories.

My grandmother wrote several historical books.

She was more of a non-fiction writer, but I always grew up seeing her writing.

She loved to write on her computer.

She wrote many articles and, like I said, some books about Virgin Islands culture.

She wrote about her upbringing in Up Street on Saint Thomas.

And so seeing them always writing, always reading, really inspired me to want to tell my own stories.

Your story Ripen is based on Saint Thomas?

Yes.

Why was it important to you to center that story on Saint Thomas?

So I find that writing for me is almost like a language.

I am fluent in Saint Thomas.

I can write about places.

I can write about setting.

I can imagine the characters that I saw in my community as I grew up, and that's what's familiar to me That's what comes out whenever I write.

I am not fluent in North Carolina, and so you'll see with most of my work, none of it really takes place in the States It's all in Saint Thomas, it's all with Virgin Islanders.

And so that's what I feel most comfortable writing, and that's why I feel most comfortable living in those stories.

I love that you say fluent in Saint Thomas because Saint Thomas is practically the setting is practically another character in your story.

How many is this the first short story that you've written or had published?

So it's not.

When I was in college, I remember being thrilled to have my very first short stories published in the Caribbean Writer, which is, as we may know, UVI’s esteemed Journal of Caribbean Literature.

And so that was really exciting for me.

Back then, I didn't know that my passion was really mystery and crime stories.

So my first story featuring those same characters that are in Ripen, was featured in Ellery Queen Mystery magazine and it was called Rise, and it was about a stolen Johnnie Cake recipe.

And so, yes, there all of the stories are culinary based and they all feature a food journalist and sometimes a detective.

After I wrote Rise, I just loved living in this world with this particular character and the different people she interacted with.

And Ripen was the second one that I wrote with those same characters.

And that one was also a lot of fun to write.

What draws you to writing mysteries?

That is a great question because when I started, as I mentioned, I wasn't writing mysteries.

I thought that stories had to be beautiful and lofty.

And then but when I found myself picking up a book off of the shelf to read, those were not the books I was picking up.

I was not picking up the the books about identity or, you know, memoirs.

I was finding myself reading mystery and crime.

I think it's because my mother and grandmother liked to watch a lot of murder, she wrote, and those kinds of shows when I was growing up.

But I've always loved the mystery and I've always wanted to write one well.

So Rice was really my first try at writing a mystery, and I had so much fun writing it.

It was about food.

It was about Saint Thomas, it was about Virgin Islands Cuisine.

And it involved a mystery.

And I just had so much fun with that story and writing Ripen and all of those other ones.

It was such great fun to plot the clues and come up with the crime and and plant those clues so that readers can say, my goodness, that's how she solved it.

That's what brings me joy as a reader and a writer.

But, you know, you talk about planting those clues and literally Ripen is very much focused on the flamboyant, the flamboyant tree and the significance that has in our culture.

Yes.

When I got to the end of the story, I was like, I had that moment because the the twist was was unexpected.

So you talk about, you know, your family watching murder mysteries and the stories you wanted to tell.

Were you reading as a child?

Were you reading murder mysteries or stories that were centered on our culture or that you saw yourself in?

So that's a great question, because when I was growing up, I loved reading mysteries.

I just actually did a presentation at a conference about writing crime fiction for children.

And a lot of the books that I grew up reading that involve mysteries because I love them.

I mean, there was Nancy Drew, there was Encyclopedia Brown, you know, all of those classic mysteries, but none of them featured anybody that looked like me.

I always felt that like somebody like me who was a little black girl growing up in the Caribbean, I was a side character.

I was never the main character.

I never got to be the sleuth I was.

I was the sidekick.

And so representation is so important, especially in fiction for children, but it's equally important for us as adults to be able to see ourselves in a variety of roles.

Not just my stories focus a lot on Caribbean joy, black joy.

They are crime and mystery stories, but I never really focus on very heavy crimes.

The crimes are always lighter and the community coming together and working together is always a big part of it.

I want a black woman, Native Virgin Islander, front and center to show that we can have our adventures too.

And we're not sidekicks or side characters, but we are.

We are able to have those adventures.

We can be the ones in charge.

We can be a nuanced villain.

We can be the crusading hero.

We can be the intelligent detective.

And so that was my goal.

And you wrote in Ripen what I felt was a very nuanced story because you had those elements of the the family, the family dynamic.

You had the elements of the relationship, you had the mentor you had the villain who didn't wasn't initially the villain.

So there was a whole lot going on in this short story.

Did you intentionally set out to write short stories or are you just comfortable in that genre?

So I set out to write novels like a lot of people feel that as a writer, you're not successful unless you have a novel.

I have four children.

I teach first grade, and it's a very busy life.

And so writing short stories, I definitely is a lot more manageable than writing a novel.

But it takes a lot of craft, too because you have to fit a lot into a very small word economy.

And so beginning with with Rise, Rise is probably the shortest one of the stories that I've written with those characters.

Ripen is on the shorter end.

Most of my stories feel like longer short stories.

They are long enough to live in a little bit, hang out with those characters.

But but short enough that you can read it over a couple of day instead of, you know, the time it might take to read a novel.

What I enjoyed about about Ripen and you talk about it being, you know, a short, shorter economy of words.

But I felt that I had gotten to know those characters.

And wanted to see more of those characters.

So, Ashley, you've got me hooked I want to see more of what happens with Naomi and Mateo and the parents.

I'm like, okay, where's her next story?

Let me Google Ashley Moolenar Bernier and find out What's going on This is so kind of you.

I had had so much fun over the past year and a half, two years now writing about food journalist Naomi Sinclair.

She lives in North Carolina, but she's never there.

She's always on Saint Thomas.

She comes back home all the time so she's always there.

I've written eight short stories that are a link collection of her adventures, and each one features a different Virgin Islands Food, for example, or Ripen, focuses more on like our botanical prowess.

But I've got one called Slice that's about coconut and guava tart and the essential tart question.

I've got one called simmer that's about kalalloo, and it's about the consequences of feelings left on low boil for too long.

I've got one about bush tea, and then I've written a novel length work with those same characters.

So hopefully my goal is to get the collection sold and and hopefully put all of them out there for the world.

That's my that's my dream.

Well, I heard you say that you wrote a story about coconut and guava tart, and I don't think you want to ignite the great tart war.

That’s an essential part of that story.

Yes.

That was when you started writing.

When did you first look at yourself and say I have stories that I want to tell.

my goodness.

Well, a lot of us as writers experience something called imposter syndrome, which is that feeling that, my goodness, why would anybody consider me a writer?

Why would anybody think that my stories are the ones that have t be told?

But I think essentially it comes back to that, that same thought about representation.

I really loved writing about these characters and I loved sharing our cuisine with the world.

I wanted to I wanted to put that out there.

And so although I didn't think that it was ever going to happen I submitted Rise to Ellery Queen Magazine.

And this is a magazine that's been around for a while, and it's considered like the big mountain for mystery writers.

I was really surprised when it got in.

I was excited and thrilled, but I was extremely surprised.

And even with Ripen, Ripen was selected by editors Steph Char and Lisa Unger for the Best American Mystery and Suspense 2023, which is an anthology of the 20 best mystery stories of the previous year.

So I'm... and that's an amazing accomplishment.

Congratulations.

Thank you so much.

When I heard that news that was equal parts, you know, elation and.

Wait a second.

Are you sure that they really meant to include me?

You know, like it was.

It was a little bit of that.

Even though even so, even with with those successes that I'm incredibly grateful for and thankful for, I still I still know that I've got to try to continue to be at the top of my game and tell stories that people enjoy reading and stories that are crafted well.

And so I, I still believe that I've got some great stories to tell, and I'm working hard on trying to make them make them as good as possible.

So Rise was your first story?

Yes.

Ripen, you know, reintroduces us to these characters.

Yeah.

Have you started submitting the remaining stories in your series to other publication?

So currently, as I mentioned, they are a little long and that unfortunately the market for longer short stories is a little slim.

I do have some other stories featuring other characters that I've submitted and have been accepted in different publications, but my goal right now is to submit the eight stories and the eight linked stories as a collection.

And so I'm trying not to tie the character any of those stories up with a publication in a magazine that might hold onto the rights for a little bit longer.

So we'll see.

We'll see how those go.

I do have a couple of other stories coming out, as I mentioned.

So there are other places to see my work while we wait for that.

Will we wait for the story collection to come to fruition?

Would you say that there are any elements of Ripen that are autobiographical?

No, except for except.

So I do mention lizard food in in that story.

So growing up, that's how we always refer to it as lizard food.

There are these little orange pods with these little red seeds inside and I have learned that here in the States referred to as a bitter melon.

But growing up, we always call them Lizard Food.

So I always remember when I was about nine years old, we were down on the beach and my uncle will give me one.

And he said, Just try it.

He said, You know, growing up, we use to eat these all the time Just give it a try.

It was the I mean, when I say bitter, it was the worst tasting thing.

I my goodness, I can still taste it in my mouth But I knew that I had to include I had to include that in the story somewhere.

When writing a short story and knowing that you have an economy of words that you're working with, are there things What did you have to leave out of Ripen?

That's a great question.

I feel that for this particular story, I was very glad that I didn't have to leave anything out.

I usually start with a theme and the theme of this story was blooming right and blossoming.

And so the theme had the plants, it had that relationship that was kind of blossoming and coming into itself a little bit more.

It's the fourth story in the collection, so we've seen them kind of grow into this point and and then it just had that whole idea of like a life cycle of like a fruit, something beginning and something going past its prime and I think that luckily I was able to accomplish that with this story.

I felt like I didn't have to leave anything out, but I continued to explore what happens next in the following stories in the collection.

What inspired you to write Ripen So again, I was I had already gotten this story with these characters, with Naomi and Mateo, and I was very excited about about trying something new with them.

My grandmother passed away in 2018, but one thing that I was very, very excited about inheriting from her was her book collection She had a room in her house that was just filled with books, by, about and by and about Virgin Islands culture, African culture and African-American culture.

She had so many books and some of the books she had were books about Virgin Islands, flora and fauna.

There were some that were written by Areola Peterson.

There were some that were written by the UVI Cooperative Extension Service.

And I just really dug into those books, and the story just kind of formed in my head.

And those books inspired so much of those books inspired so much of these stories, the books that she left behind and I'm incredibly thankful for them And those are certainly books that you wouldn't even be able to find now.

Right.

So you so you have a treasure?

Yes, a treasure.

She has a cook book from I think it's like 1965 or something like that.

And some of the names in the book are, you know, some of these prolific V.I.

names.

And I you know, just reading them and holding the book in my hand, you know, falling apart.

But it's it is definitely a treasure.

So in your book and in your story in Ripen, you talk a lot about legacy.

And there's almost there's a sense of looking forward but also of the things that we've lost.

What is the key message of your story?

Oh boy, Yes.

So this one, there are some big themes in this story.

The big theme in this story is growth, but also recognizing that things bloom and grow.

And then the flip side of that is that sometimes, you know, after things bloom and grow, they eventually do reach a declining point for many people like Naomi, seeing her father going through some health issues.

And so she's seeing kind of the other end of this of this beauti cycle.

She and Mateo are at the beginning of this relationship of theirs.

And she's seeing, you know, the beautiful side that's growing.

And so the story just kind of explores both of those aspects.

What do you want your legacy to be as a writer?

Well, I like my legacy to be that that's such a great question, by the way.

I love my legacy to be something that I feel has been left for me, not only from my grandmother, but from all of those V.I.

write whose books she had in her library.

You know, it's just a love of the Virgin Islands and a love of all things related to us and our culture.

I my characters are all like unapologetically Virgin Islanders.

They love St Thomas, they love being home.

They love our food.

They love our traditions.

And I hope that by writing stories and leaving some of that behind for readers, that they that they continue to see themselves in those pages, that they continue to see all of the wonderful joyful parts of of being a Virgin Islander or reflected in those pages.

And that's that's my hope as a writer.

Well, I'd like for you to share a favorite passage from Ripen that gives us a sense of the unapologetically Virgin Islander that Naomi is.

that's great.

I think I'll just probably read from this section.

It's a mystery.

So tricky choosing a passage that wouldn't give away too much But I'll read a little bit of that passage that you mentioned where we talk about leaving things behind.

Let's see.

Okay.

So this is after Naomi, who's a food journalist, has gotten a call from her, her significant other, Mateo, who's an EMT, that there's something going on down at Brewer's Bay and she needs to get down there to see what's going on.

So I'll go ahead and read it.

I note as I drive down the hill to brewers that finding flamboyant trees for my mother won't be a problem at all.

The hillsides look like Christmas trees, rich greens dotted with spots of vibrant red.

When I was little, my father told me the story of two Virgin Islanders decades before flying over the St. Thomian Hills, in a tiny airplane and scattering hundreds of flamboyant seeds across the island.

I love the idea of them tossing out seeds they probably never get to see grow entirely.

Leaving those gifts for those who will come afterwards.

I loved the idea of a plant being a legacy.

Brewer’s Bay is lit up with an entirely different color Both lanes are filled with blue police Chevy’s, most of which are flashing their neon lights.

Officers and EMT’s like Mateo fill the beach, talking into their radios and milling around on the sand.

There's a group of them hover down at the water's edge, crowded around a rescue boat.

They're deep.

Blue uniforms are soft contrasted against the aquamarine water and their very presence and all the reasons behind it.

A sharper contrast against the waves and the white sand.

I pull my parents explorer against the curb, making sure not to scratch or smudge daddy's new tires I look over the shoreline.

There has to be at least 21st responders on the beach, as well as a sizable crowd of onlookers.

And I'm noticing cameras and tripods and audio equipment.

So this must be my people, press There's a police officer keeping the civilian crowd closer to the road, away from the rescue boat anchored close to the shore.

Mateo is right.

There certainly is something.

I'm starving.

And it takes everything in me to ignore the bunches of fuzzy sea grapes growing along the edges of the beach and make my way down towards the crowd on the sand.

I'm halfway there when I hear someone calling my name.

It's been a while since I've seen Kazai Hodge, but she's only become more unmistakable than ever.

In the decade since I've interned at her fledgling online newspaper, she's doubled in size, cut off all the three inches of her hair, and died it a deep red.

And she's traded in her contacts for wide frames The same color as her hair.

Her newspaper's grown, too.

Back when I’d interned for her the summer before I left for college, she was struggling to get reporters, to get interviews, to get readers to check out her page.

Now the Conch Shell Chronicle boasts thousands of readers from all over the islands and the world.

She walks up from the crowd and greets me with a hug that feels a soft and giving as the mangos on my mother's tree.

Yeah, Kozi’s presence has grown plenty But to me she'll always be the person who welcomed a curious 17 year old into her one room office in the back of her sister's nail salon and gave all the advice and experience she could.

Like those two men on the plane scattering seeds for later.

I’m going to stop there.

Wow.

Wow.

And.

And in that in Reading Ripen, which I, you know, which I already said was such a nuanced story, you talk about legacy.

You talk about the future and what would you say.

And that's what I got from that is such a nuanced story that is really about people being people blooming where they are planted.

What what is your what is the key message that you want readers to walk away from Ripen with?

well, I hopefully they walk away wanting to read more, but just the idea of I just want people to leave the story thinking, Wow, that was a good mystery.

Knowing a little bit more about V.I.

plants and V.I.

Virgin Islands plants and Flora and just having the idea of just that beautiful life cycle, that beautiful beginning, the bloom and the end.

And that's really what I had in mind as I wrote that story.

What would be your tips for any aspiring writers out there?

my goodness.

Well, I hope that there are many because we need our stories told Don't be afraid to be authentic.

That's my that's my big one.

I am a big proponent.

Proponent, sorry, of including dialect in my stories, because that's the way Virgin Islanders speak.

And we can switch it up.

We can code switch, but we have our own slang, we have our own mannerisms, we have our own lingo.

And it's important to include that and not to not to tone that down, just to make people who are unfamiliar with it comfortable, be authentic, include the people that you know that you see that you grew up with.

And that goes for anybody anywhere, not just Virgin Islands writers, but any anybody be authentic, Right?

The people and places and things that you feel and that, you know that's a that's a big one and then just devote that time.

I had to stop watching a lot of TV.

My husband will sit down want to watch this TV show with me, and I'm just like, No, I've got to write.

I've got to write.

Sneaking in that time.

My kids sitting around playing baseball and I'm cheering him from the stands.

And then when he's not up on my iPad, I'm writing my stories.

Just finding those time, finding those times that are that are convenient and sneaking it in and making that time that it might mean sacrificing something else, but making that time to write.

And I love what you said.

about being authentic.

Being authentic to what you know and being authentic to who you are in your writing journey.

It's been a pleasure to speak to Ashley Moolenar Bernier about her short story writing.

For more information on this short story or any of the books featured on this program, visit our website at www.wtjx.org We appreciate your support of our local authors and we'll see you next week when we take another book from the bookcase.