For many Bermudians all of literature is a kind of science fiction, full of snow, fast food franchises and presidential elections. Very few books reflect life on a piece of rock in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.

In early April Bermudian Carol (Pat) Marsh-Lockett, an associate professor of English at Georgia State University, gave workshops on Caribbean literature at the Bermuda College, showing students that it is possible to find literature that is a little closer to the Bermudian reality.

At Georgia State, Dr. Marsh-Lockett lectures and publishes in the areas of World Literature, African American Literature, African American Literature by Women, Caribbean Literature, Post-colonial Literature and Renaissance Literature. met with Dr. Marsh-Lockett and Angela Barry, Senior Lecturer in English at the Bermuda College, at the Bermuda Underwater Exploration Institute (BUEI) after they had lunch at La Coquille Restaurant.

?The students here have been so warm, and so receptive,? said Dr. Marsh-Lockett. ?They like the fact that I went to the West End School and finished from the Berkeley Institute. I am them ? all grown up.?

While on the Island, she gave workshops on basic writing, and workshops on Afro-American and Caribbean literature.

?I was talking with the students about the old Bermuda in which I grew up, which was deeply divided racially,? she said. ?It was such ancient history to them! The details and the landscape of segregation was lost on them.?

Still, many of the themes such as colonialism and racism in the books Dr. Marsh-Lockett talked about were probably familiar to Bermudian students. She said that often when she teaches American students she has to start at a different point. ?Invariably, I have to disabuse students of the notion of the tourist haven,? said Dr. Marsh-Lockett. ?Sometimes I even have to start with the proverbial 1492. I say to them ?Let me tell you what really happened, and how the idea of the tourist trap arises?.?

Dr. Marsh-Lockett?s formal training at Howard University was not in Caribbean literature, but Renaissance Literature. When she first started her studies there were very few courses taught in Caribbean literature. While pursuing doctoral studies, she did substantial work in Afro-American literature.

?When you study what was going on historically, in the Renaissance period, you see how the forays into the ?new world? were being artistically codified in the artistic output of England.?

Although Afro-American and Renaissance literature sound quite different, she said transitioning between the two was actually quite easy.

?I already knew the ethos,? she said. ?I know colonialism. Who doesn?t? What was perhaps most interesting for me was reading texts and seeing my own experiences with Bermudian variations.? She said nowadays Caribbean literature is much more respected and accepted within academia, particularly since there are now Nobel Laureates from the Caribbean, V.S. Naipaul and Derek Walcott.

?The canon has changed,? she said. ?If you do British literature now, you can?t do that without doing black British literature. Everyone teaches Zadie Smith, for example.

?Texts are being lifted out of their exclusive Caribbean literature context and have become part of the literary output of the world.?

Dr. Marsh-Lockett said she rarely gets Bermudians as students in her classes at George State University, but she has had a couple.

?The librarian at the Bermuda College was one of my students,? said Dr. Marsh-Lockett. ?That was such a rewarding experiences. She was one of the finest students I have ever had.?

She said she is not sure if she would ever come back to Bermuda to teach permanently.

?The future is very open, but right now my life is very much rooted with a growing family in Atlanta, Georgia,? she said. ?I have two sons. One is a student at Howard University, and the other one is in highschool. I am a late life mother. Never say never though.?

Dr. Marsh-Lockett said that although she lives abroad, Bermuda is still her ?spiritual centre?.

?I come back loving the place,? she said. ?At the end of the day, Bermuda is home. We always love home.

?I feel like home is wherever I am, but Bermuda is my psychic and spiritual centre and it always will be.

?On a lot of levels my children have embraced that sense of having another spiritual centre in addition to Houston, where their father is from.

?I wouldn?t even attempt to divest myself of my rootedness. I am not interested in going mad just yet.?

She said that more Bermudians haven?t entered the mainstream literary world yet for a number of reasons.

?People don?t have many opportunities here to write,? she said.

?People like Angela Barry have to be very intentional about carving out time and carving out space to write.

?I don?t think there is anything inherently wrong with Bermuda, but it is a very small place.

?The population is small. That makes a difference. Not only that, mainstream publishing is also very difficult to get into.?

She said Bermudians also need to find an audience for their writing. But she said she is not interested in becoming a novelist herself.

?I do scholarly and academic writing,? she said. ?I write articles. Writing a novel is not an interest of mine. That?s not to say it isn?t valuable. Scholarship is my first love.

?There are some people who say they see poetry in me. If there is any creativity I have, it is in creative scholarship.?