Writer Bio
Celeste Rita Baker is a Virgin Islander who currently resides in Harlem New York City. She has published short stories in The Caribbean Writer, Calabash, Margin’s Magical Realism, Scarab, Moko Magazine, Abyss & Apex, Strange Horizons, and is included in the anthologies People of Colo(u)r Destroy Fantasy, An Alphabet of Embers, Black Science Fiction Society's Genesis, The Outcast Hours and The Apex Book of World SF 4. Celeste is a 2019 graduate of Clarion West.
Baker's genres include Speculative Fiction, Magical Realism and Reality Based Fiction in which she writes in Standard English and in Caribbean dialect. |
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Inspirations
I write because the urge to write won’t
go away. It’s always on my mind, not something I always want to do, but I
always feel better when I’ve done it.
The first time I saw myself – A Black Caribbean Woman – in print was in Merle Collin’s novel Angel. I stood in the store holding the book to me chest, panting, tears burning me eyes. I was. I am grateful for and love the work of Octavia Butler. Ms. Butler brought me to a world of science fiction where I was. |
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The Virgin Islands
My family is from The Virgin Islands,
St. Thomas and St. John. I was born in
New York City but ‘came to know meself’ on St. Thomas, learned to talk there
and enjoyed my childhood. I returned to New York when I was twelve years old
and that affected me in that I realized that I used to be and now I wasn’t.
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Harlem NYC
I moved back and forth from St. Thomas
to The States numerous times but settled in Harlem in 1993. Now I love it. I
can’t keep up with all the things to see, do and learn. I especially like that
whatever you’re into you can find other people doing it too and doing it in
that trend setting way that Harlem is known for. I found the incredible Sheree
Renee Thomas, my writing teacher and mentor, at Fred Hudson’s Frederick
Douglass Creative Arts Center. Harlem is.
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