Vanessa Croft holds a B.Ed in English Literature and an MA in English Language from the University of the West Indies. An avid writer, her poetry has been published in Where I See The Sun: an Anthology of Anguillian poetry. She is a long time winner of the Malliouhana Poetry Competition with numerous first prize placings for Spoken Word from 2007 to 2018. In 2017, she represented the literary arts in Anguilla as a Spoken Word poet at CARIFESTA in Barbados. Vanessa also spoke as a panelist at the 2018 Anguilla Literary Arts Festival where she presented her experience running a blog. In 2018, Vanessa received the National Youth Award for Outstanding Performance in the Literary Arts. She was nominated at the same ceremony for Recognition in Volunteerism for her work teaching Literature to inmates at Her Majesty’s Prison as well as her pioneer efforts in promoting reading for pleasure amongst adolescents. In 2019, Vanessa once again represented Anguilla at CARIFESTA in Trinidad. The Kweli Journal published Vanessa’s short story “Secret in the Mangoes” in April 2020. In that same year, Vanessa was recognized as a Women’s Week Honouree for her work as an activist.
In 2021, Vanessa received a Catapult Caribbean Arts grant for her creative writing. Vanessa most recently received the first place prize in the adult category for the National Anguillian Non Fiction Writing competition. Vanessa currently teaches Middle School English and Humanities at the Omololu International School where she is the coordinator of Secondary Studies. She has also facilitated a course in Creative Writing at the University of the West Indies, Open Campus. In her spare time, she runs her lifestyle blog VanessaExplainsItAll.com.