The Twelve Days of Jamaican Christmas

Zalika Reid-Benta is a Toronto-based writer whose debut story collection, Frying Plantain, won the Danuta Gleed Literary Award and the Rakuten Kobo Emerging Writer Prize for Literary Fiction. Frying Plantain was longlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize, and it was shortlisted for the Toronto Book Award, the White Pine Award, and the Trillium Book Award. Zalika served as the 2021-2022 Writer in Residence at Western University and was the chair of the 2021 Scotiabank Giller Prize. She received an M.F.A. in fiction from Columbia University, was a John Gardner Fiction Fellow at the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, and is an alumnus of the Banff Centre Writing Studio.

MARIYAH RAHMAN is a children’s book illustrator and background painter, born and raised in Trinidad and Tobago. She has a BFA in illustration from ArtCenter College of Design, specializing in entertainment arts. Clients include Titmouse Animation, Nix Hydra, Heinemann Publishing and Simon & Schuster. Her inspirations include literature, fantasy, and folklore, and she spends most of her free time reading, baking, and rolling around with her cats and dogs. Mariyah’s debut picture book, Plátanos Are Love, was published by Simon & Schuster in 2023.