Events
Book signings and conversations across the Caribbean
Coming up
Nos Baranca, Nos Democracia
Thursday, 12 November 2026 · 6:00 - 9:00 p.m. · free entry
Casibari rock formation, Aruba
The University of Aruba closes forty years of Status Aparte with an open evening on the rocks at Casibari. There is a main stage, but most of the evening happens at domino tables, in a letter-writing corner and at a magnetic poetry wall, around two questions: what have forty years meant to you, and what do you want from the next forty? What people bring that night feeds into an academic session afterwards. Rendell is on the programme with Step out of your Conch, alongside poetry, spoken word, theatre, music, local arts and food.
Papiamento is the main language of the evening. Parking is limited, so come early or come together.
Past events
The Conch Paradox at the University of St. Martin
Wednesday, 30 September 2026 · 7:00 p.m. · completed
University of St. Martin, Philipsburg
A short talk and then an open conversation, set up for students from three courses at the university and members of a local book club. Two days earlier Rendell gave an inscribed copy to the USM Library, where students, faculty and staff can borrow it. See the press page.
What makes small island economies different?
Tuesday, 22 September 2026 · completed
Rotary hall, Landhuis Zeelandia, Willemstad, Curaçao
A mini-seminar of the Economenclub, the Association of Dutch Caribbean Economists, with Guido Rojer on small island economies and an announcement of the ISISA Islands of the World conference coming to Curaçao in June 2027. Rendell opened by sending two conch shells around the room, a young one and an old one. The old one is heavier. After about four years the conch stops growing outward and thickens its shell from the inside, which works perfectly against a shark and is exactly what lets a fisherman carry it home.
Video: Runy Calmera. Photos via Wikimedia Commons: melon cactus on Curaçao by WillemVanA (CC0), pineapple by Wilfredor (CC0), romanesco by Jon Sullivan (public domain), "Rose, Matilda4" by Yoko Nekonomania (CC BY 2.0).
Called to Wealth Summit: resilient toward what end?
Thursday, 23 July 2026 · 10:30 - 11:00 a.m. · completed
Called to Wealth International Summit, The St. Regis Aruba Resort
A keynote slot at the Called to Wealth International Summit, an economics-and-faith gathering that drew speakers and investors from across the region to the St. Regis. The talk took Aruba's tourism as its case: an economy that has become extraordinarily good at one thing, and a resilience that may be pointed toward the wrong end. This is the conch paradox carried onto the stage. The queen conch grows the perfect shell for protection, and that same perfection, too heavy to move and too sealed to adapt, is what traps it. Against the conch Rendell set the cockroach, which survives by staying unarmoured and adaptable rather than by fortifying. He closed by turning the argument back on the room: what is your conch, how are you sealing it, and what are you leaving the people who come after. Photos courtesy of Jessica Besselink.
Book signing at De Wit & Van Dorp
Wednesday, 20 May 2026 · 3:00 - 5:00 p.m. · completed
De Wit & Van Dorp, Dakota branch, Aruba
The second Aruba signing, at De Wit & Van Dorp Dakota. Featured here with Lincoln D. Gomez, whose feature review of The Conch Paradox ran four days later in his LinkedIn newsletter and in Trempan. See the press page.
Book signing at Plaza Bookshop
Saturday, 16 May 2026 · 2:00 - 4:00 p.m. · completed
Plaza Bookshop, Ave Milio Croes 8A, Oranjestad, Aruba
The Aruba launch signing, hosted by Nico Luydens and the Plaza Bookshop team. Twenty consignment copies placed on the shelf with first-mover exclusivity through the signing date.
Klimaattafel Bonaire: presenting the conch paradox
Wednesday, 21 January 2026 · before publication · completed
Klimaattafel (climate roundtable), Bonaire
The organizers had queen conches on the table, each with a hole punched through it. That is how fishermen, and before them the Caiquetío people across the ABC islands, extracted the animal: the shell is too heavy to crack and too curved to reach into, so you punch through and the conch's perfect protection becomes irrelevant. Rendell used the shells in his presentation on the conch paradox, on how the very adaptations that protect us can become the reason we cannot respond when conditions change. The conversation that followed drew examples from Curaçao, Aruba and the Netherlands, treating resilience as a Kingdom-wide question rather than Bonaire's alone. This was months before the book was out.
Get the book
Available as a paperback worldwide, in bookshops in Aruba, Curaçao and St. Martin, and as a Kindle ebook.
Where to buyHosting an event or interested in a signing in your city? Get in touch.