Happy April! I hope these past few months have treated you well and that they have been filled with lots of great reading. On my end, life has had its ups and downs, and I’ve read some really great books. Honestly, when I doomscroll on social media after back-to-back terrible news days, the thing that saves me the most (outside of hugs and kisses from my family) is reading. When the year began, I said my motto for it was to “mind my business and read books”. I’m happy to report that it’s helped my mental health so very much. Also, journaling! I’ve been able to pick up journaling consistently this year. I’m also into sending snail mail. Which is why I posted the following on Threads:

Leave me a comment if you want the address to my P.O. Box! And yes, I do write back. Maybe if you want to, you can answer the standing question I ask in every #NuevasPáginas issue: How are you doing? And I’m looking for the long answer, not the short one you might feel expected to give. My goal with this question started as a personal reminder to slow down and honestly check in with myself, and it’s evolved as a way to try to reach out to others. If snail mail isn’t your thing, you can always answer the following way, too:

• Out loud to yourself

• In the comments (link below)

• Reply to this email (only I see those replies; in case you want some privacy)

I truly believe community sustains, and I’m grateful to be able to be in community with you here.

Leave a comment

Happy reading,

#NuevasPáginas is a space that aims to amplify and spotlight Hispanic/Latine/x authors with newly published books. The goal is to connect readers to their next favorite Hispanic/Latine/x authored book through a mini casual get-to-know-the-book-and-author interview. So please help me connect to more readers. So that together we can continue to build the love/support of Latine literature!

Without further ado…our special guest author for today’s Nuevas Pagina issue is…Delia Ruiz, author of Ways Papi Says I Love You!

Could you tell me a bit about where this photo was taken? Is it special to your book in some way?

The cover of the book was inspired by a photograph of my dad in the 1980's. The photo features a truck that many Mexican families had en en rancho. It was the same truck I rode in the back of as we went through creeks and waved to the community. That truck on the cover has so many memories where quality time was spent.

Tell me about your book without telling me about your book - share any literary inspirations behind your book! If there are none, the gap you wanted to fill in the literary canon with your book

I would describe my book as My Papi Has a Motorcycle meets the topic of love languages. It's a story based outside of the U.S. on the dirt roads where my childhood began. There are very few books set outside of the U.S. specifically in rural settings and upon my research, I found that many Latine immigrants come from rural areas before leaving for work opportunities. Because of this, it was important for me to have a story against this background where Latine immigrant families could see a slice of home with arroyos, plazas, farms, and joy.

Did you write this picture book for little you? If so, what did you want little you to know?

In a way, I did. Throughout childhood, my dad had to leave to the U.S. to work and would come visit us in Mexico when his construction contracts ended. During these breaks, he would spend time with my sister and me by taking us on truck rides to the tiendita. I would want little me to know that these book illustrations are happy memories of childhood life and to hold one to the smiles and the sense of community even when stepping away to pursue another life path.

Grab a copy of the book here!

What’s one takeaway from your picture books that you want parents to sit with?

I want parents to reflect on how to receive and give love. How was love shown for you and how can it be given to your kids/students? The book explores the ways love is shown when the words “I love you” are hard to say. I grew up with parents that were quiet, serious, and demonstrated their love mainly by acts of service but as a mom I share love to my child with I love yous and hugs. I want parents to share with little ones that there is more than one way to show love and that they can also choose what kind of love they want to give and receive.

If a book was home, where would your home be?

Definitely en el rancho en San Luis Potosí, Mexico.

If your book was a famous musician who would it be?

I would say Los Ángeles Azules because the characters are playing cumbias as they're going down the dirt roads.

What comfort food could a reader pair with your book?

An ideal food pairing would be papitas con valentina, un gansito, pingüinos ,and a sidral de manzana (all things you can find at a tiendita).

In what ways has access (or little to no access) to Hispanic/Latinx/e literature defined you as a writer?

Not seeing enough books written by our community (especially Spanish editions) really pushed me to create my stories. That quote if you don't see it, create it was my driving force to figure out how the publishing industry worked and to pitch stories I believed it. Today all of my work is rooted in Latine joy as I explore everyday moments and show readers a glimpse into community, family, music, and language.

Where can readers keep up with your work?

I share insights on my website: AventurasEnESL.com and I'm on most socials as

Don't forget to grab a copy of the book!

Thank you to Delia Ruiz for taking the time to chat with me about her book! Please please make sure you purchase a copy (or request your local library carry a copy) #SupportLatineLit!

Delia is a first-generation Latina author whose stories bloom from her rich Mexican heritage. Her published works include the ¡123 BAILA! board book series, WAYS PAPI SAYS I LOVE YOU, MOON CHEF, and the International Latino Book award-winning story ROQUI’S PANDERO BEAT. She currently resides in Puerto Rico with her husband, toddler, and pug. Delia hopes to inspire the next generation of writers who also come from immigrant households.

Synopsis for Ways Papi Says I Love You (from Bookshop.org):

A heartfelt celebration of the father-daughter bond—ideal for fans of My Papi Has a Motorcycle. An adorable picture book for ages 3 to 7.

When Papi, who is always busy working at el rancho, asks Maricruz to jump in the truck with him to go get groceries for Mami, she grabs the list and sprints! During the drive, they wave to the people in their community and enjoy each other's company. But when they make a turn down a particularly bumpy road, they lose their grocery list. Fortunately, an unexpected friend shows up to save the day!

Inspired by the author’s own truck rides with her father through a ranch in Mexico, Ways Papi Says I Love You connects the love languages between a father and daughter and shows the many ways love can be expressed and received.

Written and illustrated by a Latine duo, Ways Papi Says I Love You is available in English and in Spanish.

The best way you can support Latinx/e authors and Latinx/e literature is by doing the following:

REQUEST that your local library carry a copy

PURCHASE a copy of the book for a friend, family member, or your nemesis (hey! I’m sure they read too).

SHOUT about the book on any social media platform you might have or to your friends and family!

SHARE this interview widely! Word of mouth does wonders for connecting readers to books.

REVIEW their books on any website that sells books!

New year, NEW Latine authors to introduce you to, and I could not be more excited!! But before we jump into that, I’d like to continue holding space to check in on you. Last year, I used the beginning of these issues to ask: How are you doing? And I’m looking for the long answer, not the short one you might feel expected to give. I asked before as a personal reminder to slow down and check in with myself, and as a way to try and reach out to others. So please feel free to reply out loud to yourself, reply in the comments, or you can always feel free to reply to this email, too (only I see those replies; in case you want some privacy). I truly believe community sustains, and I’m grateful to be able to be in community with you here.

Leave a comment

Happy reading,

#NuevasPáginas is a space that aims to amplify and spotlight Hispanic/Latine/x authors with newly published books. The goal is to connect readers to their next favorite Hispanic/Latine/x authored book through a mini casual get-to-know-the-book-and-author interview. So please help me connect to more readers. So that together we can continue to build the love/support of Latine literature!

Today’s special guest author is…

Rudy Ruiz author of ‘The Border Between Us’!

Could you tell me a bit about where this photo was taken? Is it special to your book in some way?

This photo was taken at my writing desk in my home. This is where I work on my novels, surrounded by books and images that inspire me. The setting is special to my book in that within eyeshot I keep photos that inspire me. In the case of ‘The Border Between Us’, I keep images of my father and my son nearby and both of them were important sources of inspiration as I wrote this story.

Tell me about your book without telling me about your book - share any literary inspirations behind your book! If there are none, the gap you wanted to fill in the literary canon with your book

I have always loved bildungsromans. Some of my favorites have been James Baldwin’s ‘Go Tell It On The Mountain’ and Henry Roth’s ‘Call It Sleep’, both set in New York City, and Cormac McCarthy’s ‘The Crossing’, set along the U.S. – Mexico border. My dream was to write the definitive Border Bildungsroman. I wanted to write a very personal, intimate, heartfelt and authentic novel that captured the timeless coming-of-age spirit of those novels while sharing a story that brought to life growing up Mexican-American along the border and aspiring to reach for the American Dream up north in the big city.

Grab a copy of the book here!

What are two central themes in your book that you connect with the most and why?

One of the driving themes of the novel is every immigrant family’s journey and balancing act in America. I feel it’s a universal experience to yearn to achieve the promise of America while at the same time preserving one’s heritage, culture and values. Another central theme, of course, is that of borders, the man-made divisions we put up between each other and even within ourselves. These come in many forms: national borders, generational acculturation gaps, class divides, and ultimately even the metaphysical borders of life and death.

What is something you learned while writing your book? In what ways did it change you?

One thing I learned while writing The Border Between Us is that the way we relate to our family members is continuously evolving. We are free to grow and change as human beings and as we mature we can reinterpret our past and question why things happened the way they did, why our parents or our relatives and friends took certain actions, made certain decisions, and we can come to see them and ourselves in a new light. Writing the novel was very therapeutic for me in that way. And I think when people read it deeply, it can help them perhaps as they reflect on the mysteries and puzzles of their own lives. There is always good to be found in people, even in those who may have hurt us. And there are always lessons we can learn from the challenges and failures in our lives. In that sense, the book gave me a sense of acceptance, peace and hope. I hope it can do the same for those who read it.

If a book was home, where would your home be?

It’s in the title. If my book was a home it would be situated on the banks of the Rio Grande with a beautiful view of both sides of the river. Its land would extend beyond the border and encompass both sides: the U.S. and Mexico. There would be a bridge one could cross freely. There would be great music, food, and lots of family and friends celebrating together.

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If your book was a famous musician who would it be?

If The Border Between Us were a musician it might be one of those super groups that are formed when stars from different bands and genres come together to sing for a uniting cause. We’d need singers like Pedro Infante and Javier Solis from the golden age of Mexican cinema and music, but we’d also have more contemporary regional musicians like Los Tigres del Norte, Freddy Fender, and Selena. And since the story is one of a family’s journey through the often tumultuous but also exhilarating process of acculturation and exposure to new genres of music, you’d have to sprinkle in some of the pop and rock stars of the 70’s and 80’s, such as Rocio Durcal, Linda Ronstadt, Olivia Newton-John, Journey, and Rush. It’s a strange, eclectic range of musicians but – in truth – that was how life sounded growing up along the border in the era this book is set.

What comfort food could a reader pair with your book?

I would encourage readers to dive into both authentic Mexican food, like pollo en mole, which the protagonist’s abuelita makes, as well as Tex-Mex, like enchiladas verdes. Also, anything involving limes, or Mexican “limones,” as featured on the cover. One has to read the novel to understand the symbolism, but growing up on the border it seemed like we sprinkled lime juice on nearly everything.

In what ways has access (or little to no access) to Hispanic/Latinx/e literature defined you as a writer?

I loved reading and writing from an early age. I knew I wanted to write, tell stories inspired by my family members, their stories of their youth and our ancestors, but growing up going to schools in Texas I never read a single book written by a Latino author in any of my classes. You would have thought we Latinos did not exist within the American or English-language literary canon. It was not until I went to college that I had the opportunity to read and study Latino authors, including both U.S. and Latin American writers in both English and Spanish. When I read those books by authors like Gabriel García Marquez, Juan Rulfo, Laura Esquivel, Isabel Allende, Sandra Cisneros, Rudolfo Anaya, Denise Chavez, Gloria Anzaldua and many more, I understood that I’d been missing out on a lot through my formative years. I think because of that I had been learning the fundamentals of great literature, sure, but a spark had been missing to help me truly take off as a writer myself. Suddenly, I understood that the stories yearning to burst out of me were worth sharing and that – as challenging as it might be – if I kept at it, eventually I would find partners who also saw the value of my writing to help me bring my stories to readers. In the end, I feel like that long and evolving experience shaped me in various ways. It may have led to a later start as a published author, but it also taught me patience and the rewards of waiting to write and publish until I had truly found my voice and figured out what I needed to say through my work. It also instilled in me a sense of urgency, the understanding that if we don’t share our stories, our heritage and our culture through the written word, our contributions to American history and society are in danger of being silenced and erased.

Where can readers keep up with your work?

Readers can keep up with my work via rudyruiz.com and also by following me on X, Rudy_Ruiz_7.

Don't forget to grab a copy of the book!

Thank you to Rudy Ruis for taking the time to chat with me about his book! Please please make sure you purchase a copy (or request your local library carry a copy) #SupportLatinxLit!

Rudy Ruiz is the author of ‘The Border Between Us’, ‘The Resurrection of Fulgencio Ramirez’, and ‘Valley of Shadows’. He is a winner of the Jesse J. Jones Award for Best Book of Fiction, the Gulf Coast Prize in Fiction and multiple International Latino Book Awards. A bilingual native of the U.S.-Mexico border, he earned his bachelor's and master's degrees at Harvard. Visit his website at RudyRuiz.com.

Synopsis for ‘The Border Between Us’:

Ramón López was born along the US-Mexico border but is determined to get out and embrace the American dream--and he’s not sure whether his complicated family is a help or a hindrance. As the son of immigrants, as Ramón grows, his admiration for his entrepreneurial father sours as he watches his dad’s dreams of success wither on the vine. Ramón’s mother is constantly preoccupied with his younger brother, who struggles with intellectual disabilities. And the outside world is rife with danger and temptations threatening to distract Ramón from his dreams of making it to New York and succeeding as an artist.

As dreams clash with reality and values conflict with desires, Ramón finds the American dream within his reach--but will it demand too big a sacrifice?

Award-winning author Rudy Ruiz brilliantly captures the beauty and the danger of border life as Ramón struggles to understand his home and his place in the world. The Border Between Us is a stunning, compassionate story about a son’s fraught relationship with his father, the challenges of pursuing a creative life when you come from humble beginnings, and the power of embracing the whole of who you are.

The best way you can support Latinx/e authors and Latinx/e literature is by doing the following:

REQUEST that your local library carry a copy

PURCHASE a copy of the book for a friend, family member, or your nemesis (hey! I’m sure they read too).

SHOUT about the book on any social media platform you might have or to your friends and family!

SHARE this interview widely! Word of mouth does wonders for connecting readers to books.

REVIEW their books on any website that sells books!

I’ve had the honor of hosting amazing author interviews here. Today’s author interview made me want to stop reading it midway so I could go read the book instead, and that’s the energy I’ve been craving as the year comes to an end. This interview filled me with goosebumps (in a good way), and I hope you’ll read through it and get a copy of this book for the book lover in your life this holiday season!

Happy reading,

#NuevasPáginas is a space that aims to amplify and spotlight Hispanic/Latine/x authors with newly published books. The goal is to connect readers to their next favorite Hispanic/Latine/x authored book through a mini casual get-to-know-the-book-and-author interview. So please help me connect to more readers. So that together we can continue to build the love/support of Latine literature!

Without further ado…our special guest author for today’s Nuevas Pagina issue is… author of Salt Bones: A Novel!

Could you tell me a bit about where this photo was taken? Is it special to your book in some way?

That’s the Rio Grande Madonna, carved into a cottonwood tree in the bosque near my house in Albuquerque, where I live with my familia. I walk past her on my desert witch walks, and I always stop and say a little prayer. She reminds me of Persephone meets Daphne—or La Llorona, another mujer grieving and fierce...

In a recent Book Riot post on horror inspired by Latin American Folklore, my recurring incorporation of La Llorona into everything I write has been noted as an act of “reclamation and reverence.” That’s my goal for every story I tell.

Even though Salt Bones is set on the Mexicali borderlands where I grew up, this image feels spiritually connected to the heart of my newest novel. She’s like the patron saint of haunted girls and women trying to find their way home.

I would’ve loved to take a photo at the Salton Sea, where the book takes place—but I live a thousand miles away now, back in New Mexico, where my family’s originally from, but I’ll be visiting later this year for the book tour so stay tuned!

Grab a copy of the book here!

Tell me about your book without telling me about your book - share any literary inspirations behind your book! If there are none, the gap you wanted to fill in the literary canon with your book

A dried-up sea in the desert, the shore littered with bones—sharp and rotting as teeth, millions of yellowing teeth called hash. Now picture a girl running barefoot across them, bleeding. Picture a mother trying to find out what happened to her. A mother who will tear the world apart to find her.

I’ve crafted a twisty af murder mystery, yes—but also a desert elegy, a myth remix, a mother-daughter love story written in toxic dust and salt.

It’s epigraphed with this line from Eavan Boland’s poem “The Pomegranate”: “The only legend I have ever loved is / the story of a daughter lost in hell. And found and rescued there.”

I didn’t set out to retell Demeter and Persephone. But this myth has been burrowing inside the damp recesses of my heart most of my life, and it just… bled through.

Years ago, I’d already started writing a story about siblings living on the Salton Sea, in the aftermath of a toxic crisis, when my comadre back in El Valle told me the sea was drying up and that the poisons that had leeched into the water and playa for decades were turning dustborne. Arsenic and other toxic metals. Pesticides. All of it aerosolized, drifting into the lungs of everyone still living there. She said El Valle would become a ghost town within a decade if nothing changed. That was the moment I knew I had to finish the story. I had to do something.

I’ve wrapped my monstrous mama heart in a murder mystery so people would listen.

What are two central themes in your book that you connect with the most and why?

Uno: Mothering while haunted. Real talk—parenting is already terrifying. So many anxieties rise to the surface. And if you couple that with any kind of postpartum or other mental health concerns... it can be brutal at times.

Raising kids in an eco-socio-political hellscape takes it to a mythic level.

Mothering through mental illness and PTSD has long been my platform and deepest heart.

In Salt Bones, through Malamar “Mal” Veracruz, I’ve taken the idea of a “bad mother” and turned it on its head, calling out that harmful stereotype and shifting the lens toward the real culprits: societal expectations, generational trauma, cultural mythmaking, and ecological collapse.

It’s not the mother who’s monstrous—it’s the world she’s been asked to mother in.

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If a book was home, where would your home be?

A double-wide on the edge of the Salton Sea beside Salvation Mountain, papel picado sun-faded in the windows, fish bone shards on the floor, dozens of baby food jars filled with teeth. Rotting. A shimmering sea filled with toxins, sunlight glimmering pink across the water in the salted basin. Copal burning on the altar for Elena, missing these past twenty years.

If your book was a famous musician who would it be?

Selena Quintanilla-Pérez meets Selena Gomez.

The Queen of Tejano and the pop powerhouse, two generations of fierce Chicana icons. One raised us on cumbia and joy and that ache and chile-strung longing; the other reminds us we can survive, speak out, and rise again. Both of them have taken our cultura to the next level, showcasing vulnerability and strength, showing us it’s okay if we’re not fluent, if we’re just ourselves, if we speak Spanglish, if we fight through chronic illness and still show up glittering, if we live forever in the hearts of those whose lives we’ve changed.

I stay in awe of both Selenas. (Anything for Selenas, ha!)

Salt Bones carries that same cross-generational heartbeat: the rhythm of justice, legacy, and mother-daughter voices echoing across time.

If they took the stage together and sang Cielito Lindo in their own versions of glitter-studded busticacas, you’d hear the whole story: grief and celebration, tenderness and power, mujeres holding space for each other in song, ghosted women whose voices will never be lost, the next generations carrying on our legacies.

What comfort food could a reader pair with your book?

Tres leches cake—soft, sweet, and carrying intense emotion within its soaked sponge. Mal bakes one in Salt Bones for her daughters, and it became a pivotal hinge in the story, a major symbol for Mal figuring out what’s going on beneath the surface in her comunidad y familia. I included her recipe in my free Book Club Kit on my website. (And if it makes you cry a little while you eat it, that’s okay too.)

Did you always envision writing into the horror literary canon? If not, what were some of the obstacles you had to overcome to write in the genre?

Not even close. I’ve always thought of myself as writing literary thrillers—lyrical elegies to mothering in the borderlands, in the cracks between cultures, bleeding through genres.

I’ve always been drawn to mysteries—where we came from, where we’re going. I started my existential crises in kindergarten, ha! I’m always chasing that deeper knowing, that gut-knowing, which is probably why I love magical realism, surrealism, and poetry: they let us sit with what doesn’t make logical sense but still permeates through the body, the senses, the marrow, hissed through the festering cracks in the walls.

When readers started telling me my books were terrifying, I thought—huh, that tracks, since growing up on the Mexicali border meant scary stories weren’t entertainment but how we survived. And they were real.

One of the biggest obstacles to my writing career has been not “fitting” anywhere. People ask me what I write, and I say: My heart. My life. Like Frida, “I never painted my dreams. I painted my own reality.”

The tangled desert tales I weave from my family’s secrets, my community’s ghosts. All that chisme. All that drainage. All that necessary healing.

The fact that we actually carry trauma in our DNA haunts me. But as I tell my daughter, we also carry resilience. We also carry strength.

In what ways has access (or little to no access) to Hispanic/Latinx/e literature defined you as a writer?

I’ve been writing since I was a little girl growing up on the Mexicali border, putting on backyard plays with the neighbor kids, handwritten scripts, but, at the time, I didn’t know any other writers who came from the border. There were no readings, workshops, or visible literary community back then.

For my senior project in high school, I wrote a children’s book, but my teachers didn’t know any local writers (this was before we had much internet know-how down in El Valle), so I walked into a small bookstore in El Centro and asked the bookseller if she’d mentor me.

(This summer, I’ll give a Salt Bones talk in El Centro at a new indie bookstore called After Hours Books, and I’m beyond thrilled for the shop, the book club, and my hometown finally having a literary home. Woot!)

Back when I was growing up as a young escritora, it was my big brother, Paul Gonzales, who opened the literary door for me. He’d gone to Los Angeles ahead of me and paved the way, gifting me Destiny’s Child’s album “Survivor” and assuring me I was one.

He also told me about Sandra Cisneros reading at the Santa Ana Public Library, and when La Maestra spoke about her Antepasados helping her write, a dam inside me broke open. She’d put my experience into words. I knew how to listen not only to my living familia’s chisme and historia, but I could tune into the dead. That changed everything for me.

Later, it was Ana Castillo, Toni Morrison, Isabel Allende and all the mujeres whose words lit my path. At Cal State Fullerton, I wrote my Master’s thesis while raising a newborn, and this became Landscape with Headless Mama, the book that taught me how to mother on the page and claim my Chicana and Indigenous identity in the act of creation.

Balancing motherhood with writing has been the central challenge of my life, but also the deep heart of my work. My books are survival guides. Testimonios. Love letters. For the girls from the border dreaming in the dark and bringing our voices to the light.

Now I’m writing the books I needed, flashing Spanglish and sweat and salt and reminding us that we’re not alone, that we belong.

Don't forget to grab a copy!

Where can readers keep up with your work?

Sign up for my newsletter + download the Salt Bones Book Club Kit (yes, with the tres leches recipe!) at jennifergivhan.com

Instagram for real talk about mamáhood, brujería, conjuring while publishing y más! @jenngivhan

And snag a signed copy from Bookworks (make sure to specify you’d like a signed copy in the comments) and come hang out with me at Books on the Bosque, where I’ll be launching Salt Bones on July 22^nd in Albuquerque!

Thank you to for taking the time to chat with me about her book! Please please make sure you purchase a copy (or request your local library carry a copy) #SupportLatinxLit!

Jennifer Casas Givhan

(she/her/ella/la bruja)
The Los Angeles Times called my newest novel Salt Bones (Mulholland/Little, Brown, 2025) “a triumph… one of the most masterful marriages of horror, mystery, thriller and literary writing” and Publishers Weekly included it in their Best Books of 2025.

I am a Mexican-American and Indigenous poet and novelist (Salt Bones is available for preorder now), who grew up in the Imperial Valley, a small, border community in the Southern California desert. My family comes from the Indigenous peoples of New Mexico, Texas, and Mexico including Ysleta del Sur, the Tigua Indian peoples of the Ysleta region of El Paso, and the Huichol of Nayarit.

I earned my Master’s degree in Fine Arts in Poetry from Warren Wilson College in North Carolina and my Master’s degree in English Literature and Creative Writing at California State University Fullerton, where I was the recipient of the Graduate Equity Fellowship.

My honors include a 2015 National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, a PEN/Rosenthal Emerging Voices Fellowship, The Frost Place Latinx Scholarship, a 2020 Southwest Book Award, an Honorable Mention for 2021 The Rudolfo Anaya Best Latino Focused Fiction Book Award category from the International Latino Book Awards Foundation, The 2019 New Ohio Review Poetry Prize chosen by Tyehimba Jess, Cutthroat Journal’s 2018 Joy Harjo Poetry Prize chosen by Patricia Spears Jones, The 2017 Greg Grummer Poetry Prize chosen by Monica Youn, The 2015 Lascaux Review Editors’ Choice Poetry Prize, and The Pinch Poetry Prize chosen by Ada Limón.

My poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction has appeared in The New Republic, The Nation, Best of the Net, Best New Poets, AGNI, TriQuarterly, Ploughshares, POETRY, Boston Review, Crazyhorse, Blackbird, The Kenyon Review, New England Review, Salon, The Rumpus, and Prairie Schooner, among many others.

Synopsis for Salt Bones:

At the edge of the Salton Sea, in the blistering borderlands, something is out hunting...

Malamar Veracruz has never left the dust-choked town of El Valle. Here, Mal has done her best to build a good life: She’s raised two children, worked hard, and tried to forget the painful, unexplained disappearance of her sister, Elena. When another local girl goes missing, Mal plunges into a fresh yet familiar nightmare. As a desperate Mal hunts for answers, her search becomes increasingly tangled with inscrutable visions of a horse-headed woman, a local legend who Mal feels compelled to follow. Mal’s perspective is joined by the voices of her two daughters, all three of whom must work to uncover the truth about the missing girls in their community before it’s too late.

Combining elements of Latina and Indigenous culture, family drama, mystery, horror, and magical realism in a spellbinding mix, Salt Bones lays bare the realities of environmental catastrophe, family secrets, and the unrelenting bond between mothers and daughters.

The best way you can support Latinx/e authors and Latinx/e literature is by doing the following:

REQUEST that your local library carry a copy

PURCHASE a copy of the book for a friend, family member, or your nemesis (hey! I’m sure they read too).

SHOUT about the book on any social media platform you might have or to your friends and family!

SHARE this interview widely! Word of mouth does wonders for connecting readers to books.

REVIEW their books on any website that sells books!

An awkward hand wave is needed as an opening to this. I know it’s been way too long. Some day, I’ll write about every way in which this year has challenged me, not today, though. Today, I want to get back up (after falling off for quite some time), dust myself off, and try again. So here I am, right before the year ends, coming back into your inbox with a long-overdue introduction and interview to a poet/poetry collection that I first heard about earlier this year. It’s one I’ll be picking up before the year ends because what better way to end the year than with some poetry?

What do you usually like to end the year reading? Are you rushing to meet reading goals? How are you doing (really)? I’d love to know! Leave me a comment below <3

Leave a comment

In bookish love and care,

#NuevasPáginas is a space that aims to amplify and spotlight Hispanic/Latine/x authors with newly published books. The goal is to connect readers to their next favorite Hispanic/Latine/x authored book through a mini casual get-to-know-the-book-and-author interview. So please help me connect to more readers. So that together we can continue to build the love/support of Latine literature!

Without further ado…our special guest author for today’s Nuevas Pagina issue is…Eduardo Martínez-Leyva, author of Cowboy Park!

Could you tell me a bit about where this photo was taken? Is it special to your book in some way?

This photo, taken by Nicholas Nichols during a headshot session, was set in Riverside Park, New York City—a place deeply significant to me. When I first arrived in NYC from Texas, everything felt unfamiliar and overwhelming. My only goal was to earn my MFA and write a book. I came to the city with few possessions and a tight budget, arriving weeks before classes began. During that time, as I waited for my work-study funds, I found comfort in wandering Riverside Park, people-watching to distract myself from homesickness and hunger. I would walk and walk as a way to assuage my loneliness and my uncertainty. Returning to this park for the photo felt like coming full circle—to the place where my journey as a writer truly began. It holds memories both challenging and transformative.

Grab a copy of the book here!

Tell me about your book without telling me about your book - share any literary inspirations behind your book! If there are none, the gap you wanted to fill in the literary canon with your book

Cowboy Park explores my upbringing growing up on the U. S.-Mexico border, an environment that is both invigorating and crushing. It is in conversation with debut collections that shaped me: Thomas James’ Letters to a Stranger, Tracy K. Smith’s The Body’s Question, Eduardo C. Corral’s Slow Lightning, Natalie Diaz’s When My Brother Was an Aztec, Cynthia Cruz’s Ruin, and Beth Bachmann’s Temper. These books deeply influenced my work, and I find myself returning to them for inspiration and guidance.

What are two central themes in your book that you connect with the most and why?

Survival is a core theme throughout Cowboy Park. How BIPOC folks manage to survive despite being constantly surveilled, oppressed, and targeted became the driving force. Two central narratives are about the detainment and deportation of one of my brothers, and the other narrative is about my mother surviving the 2019 mass shooting that happened at a WalMart in my hometown of El Paso, Texas. The collection eventually became a way of depicting how a community that has been maligned still manages to overcome obstacles, learning to navigate through trauma.

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If a book was home, where would your home be?

If a book were a home, mine would be built in El Paso, TX; New York City; and Provincetown. Each place is a point of entry and a beginning—reflecting themes of migration, belonging, and transformation that I explore throughout Cowboy Park. In fact, the title of the books derives from the name of the park near my childhood home of El Paso.

If your book was a famous musician who would it be?

This is a tough question because Cowboy Park is a composite of many musical influences from my upbringing—corridos, rancheros, alternative, and hip hop. If I had to choose, the book is an amalgamation of Chavela Vargas, Rigo Tovar, Los Tucanes de Tijuana, The Smashing Pumpkins, and the Queen B herself, Lil’ Kim—a blend of tradition, rebellion, and bold self-expression.

What comfort food could a reader pair with your book?

A good bowl of menudo or pozole—meals that brought me comfort as a child and evoke warmth, nostalgia, and home.

In what ways has access (or little to no access) to Hispanic/Latinx/e literature defined you as a writer?

I can’t think of a more urgent time than now to share our stories, words, experiences, and writing. Growing up, I struggled to enjoy literature. English was my second language, and I rarely saw stories featuring people who looked like me or reflected my experiences. This absence motivated me to write stories for those who felt othered or unseen. Writing became my way to share, connect, and hopefully expand perspectives. My hope is that Cowboy Park reaches the audience it needs to reach to preserve these stories, people, and memories that shaped me. I hope that it engages in a wider, meaningful dialogue and hopefully broadens understanding of people living in the U.S. Mexico border. Now, more than ever, we need to elevate more of our community, more of our voices.

Where can readers keep up with your work?

You can find me on Instagram. I’ll be launching my website soon, so stay tuned.

Don't forget to grab the book here!

Thank you to Eduardo Martínez-Leyva for taking the time to chat with me about his book! Please please make sure you purchase a copy (or request your local library carry a copy) #SupportLatinxLit!

Eduardo Martínez-Leyva, born in El Paso, TX, to Mexican immigrants, is the author of Cowboy Park, winner of the 2024 Felix Pollak Prize in Poetry from the University of Wisconsin Press. His work appears in Poetry Magazine, The Adroit Journal, Narrative Magazine, The Slowdown, The Hopkins Review, Best New Poets, and elsewhere. He has received fellowships from CantoMundo, The Frost Place, Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Lambda Literary, and Columbia University, where he earned his MFA. He was a 2024 Get the Word Out publicity incubator participant with Poets & Writers and has served as writer-in-residence at St. Albans School for Boys in Washington, D.C.

Synopsis for Cowboy Park (from Bookshop.org):

“There are fevers you still wish to forget,” writes Eduardo Martínez-Leyva, but how fortunate for the rest of us that he remembers. These tenderly crafted autobiographical poems pierce through to the heart of pain, love, loss, and the ongoing search for salvation--or at least a salve. Housed in the lived experiences of a queer Latinx person born and raised in the border town of El Paso, Cowboy Park seamlessly blends themes of masculinity, identity, and the immigrant experience, offering a new perspective on the iconic image of the cowboy and a deeper understanding of the complexities of human experience.

The detainment and deportation of Martínez-Leyva’s brother grounds this exquisite collection in the all-too-common familial tragedy of political violence and discrimination. Martínez-Leyva honors the people, language, culture, and traditions that shaped him, revealing the indignities, large and small, experienced by a community that is too often misrepresented and maligned. “My voice was the only thing keeping us warm,” he writes, and the warmth from this striking debut collection is beautiful to behold.

The best way you can support Latinx/e authors and Latinx/e literature is by doing the following:

REQUEST that your local library carry a copy

PURCHASE a copy of the book for a friend, family member, or your nemesis (hey! I’m sure they read too).

SHOUT about the book on any social media platform you might have or to your friends and family!

SHARE this interview widely! Word of mouth does wonders for connecting readers to books.

REVIEW their books on any website that sells books!

How are you holding up?

In case you missed my previous issues or are new here, before we jump into a new author interview/book feature, I want to check in on you. I also like to see this as my weekly reminder to check in with myself. So please feel free to reply out loud to yourself, reply in the comments, or you can always feel free to reply to this email, too. I truly believe community sustains, and I’m grateful to be able to be in community with you here.

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Some might read today’s special book feature as “timely,” given the recent and ongoing protests across the nation (specifically in Los Angeles — que Viva la gente de Los Angeles) against ICE raids—raids that harm, incite fear, and separate immigrant families and communities. But for me, books like the one featured here aren’t just “timely”—they exist because the problem has always been there. Xenophobia is deeply rooted in U.S. soil, and what we’re witnessing now is the compounded impact of misinformation and a lack of understanding or compassion.

I learned long ago that many folks have a hard time grasping that we have to make an effort to combat that misinformation and fight to expand our openness to learn about each other and our struggles. It takes an effort. It takes being intentional in all aspects of our lives, especially in our reading lives. Which is why I think now more than ever we should be championing and amplifying diverse books. I urge you not only to support and read books by immigrant/undocumented authors, trans/nonbinary authors, queer authors and BIPOC but also to find a way to share them and talk about them to those you know. I believe in the power of books and the power of “word of mouth”. Because you never know when a book could reach a person at the right time. Please share today’s issue widely.

And if you are able, the following organizations are accepting donations that will go to those affected by the raids:

• American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)

• National Immigration Justice Center (NIJC)

• Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights (CHIRLA)

• Pineros Y Campesinos Unidos del Noroeste (PCUN)

• Immigrant Defense Project (IDP)

• Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP)

• United We Dream

In bookish love and care,

#NuevasPáginas is a space that aims to amplify and spotlight Hispanic/Latine/x authors with newly published books. The goal is to connect readers to their next favorite Hispanic/Latine/x authored book through a mini casual get-to-know-the-book-and-author interview. So please help me connect to more readers. So that together we can continue to build the love/support of Latine literature!

Without further ado…our special guest author for today’s Nuevas Pagina issue is…Alix Dick co-author of The Cost of Being Undocumented: One Woman's Reckoning with America's Inhumane Math….

Could you tell me a bit about where this photo was taken? Is it special to your book in some way?

I took this photo as I was unboxing my book for the first time. I felt a little guilty being happy in this moment, with so much suffering happening in the undocumented community right now. It is hard to make gratitude and suffering coexist. In some ways that’s the feeling that runs throughout the entire book and it was the feeling I had when I took this picture.

Grab a copy of the book here!

Tell me about your book without telling me about your book - share any literary inspirations behind your book! If there are none, the gap you wanted to fill in the literary canon with your book

People might think this is a heavy, academic book about immigration. However, it’s secretly a telenovela - it shares some of the most intimate details of my life, in order to share a personalized understanding of what immigration does to people in this country.

We are living in scary times. The violence against the immigrant community gets worse every day. This book comes out of my need to speak up about the realities of surviving in a country that extracts the best from people and gives nothing in return. There is too much misinformation shaping what people are learning. This is why this book is more than a memoir, it combines research and science.

There are incredible authors that inspire me. Perhaps none more than Jose Antonio Vargas. His book, Dear America, made me feel seen for the very first time. Finishing his book was life changing and it made me realize how important it was for me to start putting on paper the words that were trapped in my chest for years.

What conversations do you hope your book stirs up?

I hope this book inspires readers to speak up and I hope it might, in some way, help unite our communities. It is our responsibility to protect, love, and support one another. At the end of the day, we are all we’ve got.

I pray that this book illuminates for readers just how fragile life can be. I hope it shows how one tragedy can turn us into an object of judgement and scorn in this country. If readers start unpacking their own experiences and beliefs about where immigrants come from and the inaccuracies of the media, that will be a success for me.

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What was something you learned while writing your book? In what ways did it change you?

Writing this book transformed the way I see other authors. The sheer emotional toll of putting these pages before you was no easy task. My mental health was constantly challenged as I had to re-live the trauma on these pages.

If a book was a home, where would your home be?

My home would be a book about overcoming tragedy, stacked on my bedroom shelf in my childhood home in Sinaloa, Mexico.

If your book was a famous musician who would it be and why?

I love this question so much. I think it would be Natalia Lafourcade. She understands grief and nostalgia. Her voice captures a feeling that I hope can be found in my book.

What comfort food could a reader pair with your book?

I want my book to be read alongside a warm bowl of sopa de tortilla.

In what ways has access (or little to no access) to Hispanic/Latinx/e literature defined you as a writer?

Growing up, I read a lot of books about christianity - it was a large theme in my childhood and I write about it in my book. Most of these books were not by Mexican authors. I’ve always had access to an abundance of literature. I hope this book opens up access for other Latinas to see themselves as writers and storytellers.

Where can readers keep up with your work? (Feel free to include any social media accounts that you'd like readers to follow.

People can keep up with my activities on instagram at @__thiessen

As well as through La Cuenta - LaCuenta.Substack.com and @undocumentedcosts

We are always looking for new contributors - please reach out if you have a story, poem, or picture you’d like to share with La Cuenta’s readers.

Don't forget to grab a copy of the book!

Thank you to Alix Dick for taking the time to chat with me about her book! Please please make sure you purchase a copy (or request your local library carry a copy) #SupportLatinxLit!

Alix Dick is an artist and a researcher living in Los Angeles. Her work as a producer and filmmaker has screened at film festivals across the globe. She co-edits La Cuenta, which centers the voices and perspectives of individuals labeled undocumented in the US.

Synopsis for The Cost of Being Undocumented: One Woman's Reckoning with America's Inhumane Math:

An undocumented activist and a social scientist come together to tally of the structural costs of undocumented life

An inhumane math pervades this country: even as our government extracts labor and often taxes from undocumented workers, it excludes these same workers from its social safety net. As a result, these essential workers struggle to get their own basic needs met, from healthcare to education, from freedom of association to the ability to drive to work without looking for ICE in the rearview mirror.

When Alix Dick's family found themselves in the crosshairs of cartel violence in Sinaloa, Mexico, she and her siblings were forced to flee to the U.S. Many of the scenes that she shares are difficult and unforgettable: escaping from a relationship in which her partner threatened to report her to immigration; getting root canals done in an underground dental clinic. But there are moments of triumph, too: founding her own nonprofit; working on films that tell important stories; and working with her co-author Dr. Garcia to tell her story in a framework that lays bare the realities of structural oppression.

As Alix and Antero tally the costs of undocumented life, they present a final bill of what is owed to the immigrant community. In this way, their book flips the traditional narrative about the economics of immigration on its head.

The best way you can support Latinx/e authors and Latinx/e literature is by doing the following:

REQUEST that your local library carry a copy

PURCHASE a copy of the book for a friend, family member, or your nemesis (hey! I’m sure they read too).

SHOUT about the book on any social media platform you might have or to your friends and family!

SHARE this interview widely! Word of mouth does wonders for connecting readers to books.

REVIEW their books on any website that sells books!

How are you holding up?

In case you missed my previous issues or are new here, before we jump into a new author interview/book feature, I want to check in on you. I also like to see this as my weekly reminder to check in with myself. So please feel free to reply out loud to yourself, reply in the comments, or you can always feel free to reply to this email, too. I truly believe community sustains, and I’m grateful to be able to be in community with you here. See it as your moment to vent to strangers on the internet in a safe space, or just to me (via email).

Leave a comment

Today’s issue is extra special, not only because it’s been a while since the last one, but because my kid was/is very impressed by the featured author. We have read the book featured in this issue multiple times. It’s one of our favorite books of the year. It’s helped us have a lot of great conversations about making mistakes—especially about not being embarrassed by them, but instead sharing them and owning up to them. They say books find you when you need them the most, and I would say that MISTACO is one of those books. Even before reading it, one thing that frequently would come up in my sessions with my therapist is learning how to accept/let go of the mistakes I’ve made. I love doing this thing where I spiral and spiral and spiral about a mistake or something I said, which felt like a mistake! So, through this picture book and chats with my son, it feels like the universe is gifting me a chance to practice giving myself more grace.

I hope you enjoy this interview as much as I did! I’m looking forward to catching up with you soon.

In bookish love,

#NuevasPáginas is a space that aims to amplify and spotlight Hispanic/Latine/x authors with newly published books. The goal is to connect readers to their next favorite Hispanic/Latine/x authored book through a mini casual get-to-know-the-book-and-author interview. So please help me connect to more readers. So that together we can continue to build the love/support of Latine literature!

Without further ado…our special guest author for today’s Nuevas Pagina issue is…. author of ‘Mistaco’……

Could you tell me a bit about where this photo was taken? Is it special to your book in some way?

This photo was taken at Nixta Taqueria!

I was eating a taco before I performed a story time for my book Mistaco. The especial de la casa that day was a 'weenie n’ egg taco' in honor of my Lita, who always made a big bag of them to go for us!

ALSO, I am sitting in front of the cardboard Taco Truck I made! Such a labor of love that truck, but it has brought so much happiness to so many kids, AND ADULTS.

Grab a copy of the book here!

Tell me about your book without telling me about your book - share any literary inspirations behind your book! If there are none, the gap you wanted to fill in the literary canon with your book

So with MISTACO, I hope I’m succeeding in making a book that has just as much funny as it does heart. THIS is a tall order as I think humor is one of the hardest acts to pull off in any medium.

Especially when you are also attempting at the same time to change a POV on something that is largely accepted.

That making a mistake is a bad thing.
BUT, if you put it inside a taco, suddenly it becomes a good thing! (Unless you are putting an old granola bar you left out on the counter for 3 weeks inside a taco. Then it becomes a mistake allllllll over again.)

AND on top of the humor, heart, changing a POV…I am also adding Spanglish. AND SAYING IT IS OK, AND ACTUALLY AWESOME TO USE SPANGLISH!
So apparently I am trying to fill all the gaps! YOU ARE WELCOME, LITERARY CANON!

Did you always know you wanted to write a book?
Honestly it seemed like an impossible dream as a kid, but then I had no hesitation jumping into it after I HAD my first kid.

I guess pushing a baby out of your body will make you think you can take on anything!

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What was something you learned while writing your book?
To keep trying the story in new ways!
As I tend to think that any version I write is the best thing ever written in the history of writing stuff down.

Woahhhhh….did I just write that?

Genius,,,..let’s just end WRITE there.

If a book was a home, where would your home be?
Arnold Lobel’s Frog and Toad books. They are just so cozy, and I know there will be a comfy bed for me to hide under the covers in.

Also Toad, and I can totally be anxious together over if Frog will invite us to get ice cream

If your book was a famous musician who would it be and why?
Charro as she definitely has the spirit, sparkly outfits, and facial expressions to fully capture my illustrations.

What comfort food could a reader pair with your book?
Beef Stroganoff…JUST KIDDING! TACOS, of course!!!

Don't forget to grab a copy here!

In what ways has access (or little to no access) to Hispanic/Latinx/e literature defined you as a writer?

Having access to Tejana cultura changed my perspective of the world.

The colors of my Abuelita’s house, the hand painted signs at the local taqueria, and seeing a wild assortment of knick knacks at our local flea market…all have found their way into my illustrations.

Along with all the tales I would hear of my ancestors, or just silly adventures of my family definitely left their mark on my stories.

Sadly though I can not recall any Latine authors growing up, so I am very excited for kids to grow up with me! AND all the other amazing Latine authors there are these days!

Where can readers keep up with your work? (Feel free to include any social media accounts that you'd like readers to follow)

Join my Substack for my newsletter, or find me on instagram, or blue sky posting ridiculous things like future dream homes.

Thank you to Eliza Kinkz for taking the time to chat with me about her book! Please please make sure you purchase a copy (or request your local library carry a copy) #SupportLatinxLit!

Eliza Kinkz is a Tejana artist who never stopped viewing the world through the bright colors of her crayons, AND she even ate a few, too! She's illustrated many hilarious picture books, including Papá's Magical Water-Jug Clock by Jesús Trejo which won the Pura Belpré Illustration Honor, and was the 2022 James Marshall Fellow. All her ridiculous scribbles burst straight from her heart, which is overflowing with joy. . .and probably a few crayon pieces. Eliza lives in Austin, Texas, with her family and her one true love, a huge bowl of queso.
Mistaco is her author-illustrator debut, and you can spill all the frijoles to her at ElizaKinkz.com.

Synopsis for Mistaco: A chaotically funny debut picture book about a girl who's had a terrible day full of mistakes and finds that making mistacos could be a delicious solution.

After an awful day at school (including a tragic but plausibly deniable mishap with a pudding cup), Izzy wants to be left alone. But it's Friday, and that means making tortillas with Lito.

As the mistakes pile up, they come tumbling out of Izzy—and Lito surprises her by saying everyone makes mistakes, and if she makes a tortilla out of her mistakes, he will EAT it.

"Mmmm. . .spicy! And boogery! With a hint of courage. My favorite taco EVER!"

Suddenly, the whole family is confessing and getting mistakes off their chests with a feast of mistacos! A delightfully silly picture book for fans of Dragons Love Tacos and The Book of Mistakes. Includes instructions on how to make and enjoy your own mistacos!

The best way you can support Latinx/e authors and Latinx/e literature is by doing the following:

REQUEST that your local library carry a copy

PURCHASE a copy of the book for a friend, family member, or your nemesis (hey! I’m sure they read too).

SHOUT about the book on any social media platform you might have or to your friends and family!

SHARE this interview widely! Word of mouth does wonders for connecting readers to books.

REVIEW their books on any website that sells books!

How are you holding up?

In case you missed my previous issues or are new here, before we jump into a new author interview/book feature, I want to check in on you. I also like to see this as my weekly reminder to check in with myself. So please feel free to reply out loud to yourself, reply in the comments, or you can always feel free to reply to this email, too. I truly believe community sustains, and I’m grateful to be able to be in community with you here.

Leave a comment

I know I normally slide into your inbox earlier in the week. However, this week, I decided I wanted to take things slow. If something didn’t get done when it was supposed to get done, I allowed myself to feel okay about it. There’s so much going on that it’s easy to try and push through. But in the past, pushing through has led to a lot of burnout for me. So I hope to keep it slow this weekend too. My only goal is to spend more time reading Love by Toni Morrison and maybe start a book that I need to read for an event I’ll be moderating this month.

Whatever you do this weekend, I hope it’s something that helps you replenish the good energy that propels you forward.

In bookish love,

#NuevasPáginas is a space that aims to amplify and spotlight Hispanic/Latine/x authors with newly published books. The goal is to connect readers to their next favorite Hispanic/Latine/x authored book through a mini casual get-to-know-the-book-and-author interview. So please help me connect to more readers. So that together we can continue to build the love/support of Latine literature!

Without further ado…our special guest author for today’s Nuevas Pagina issue is…Juan Carlos Reyes author of Three Alarm Fire: Stories!

Could you tell me a bit about where this photo was taken? Is it special to your book in some way?

This photo was taken on my patio, where so many of the characters in my book, Three Alarm Fire, first took their breaths. When my mother and I first arrived to the United States, we shared a basement studio apartment, our entire lives in a single room and only a window in the kitchenette that opened to an outdoor stairwell leading into the building lobby. It was a cramped space, largely dark, and until I was ten years old, even the summer afternoons felt dim, compelling me throughout my childhood to be outside, to be always on the move, to be anywhere but indoors. So I don’t take this outdoor space for granted, especially the solitude it makes possible, and I have spent a lot of time out there reading, writing, or just listening for the ephemeral sounds of both the trees stirring and the traffic on our road whirring.

It's not lost on my either that so many of the character in the story collection, so many of the narrators and voices, are actually pressed for a space of their own, are near to boiling just to be able to call somewhere home, to be able to name a place that can be a respite from the figurative fires blazing around them. I was able to fully process the lives of these characters while sitting in my own space, a spot outside my house where I could breathe even as these characters tried to squeeze any amount of breathable air out of the world.

Grab a copy here!

Tell me about your book without telling me about your book - share any literary inspirations behind your book! If there are none, the gap you wanted to fill in the literary canon with your book

If urgency met desperation and then birthed a child just as somebody lit a match. If Nicholson Baker and Salvador Plascencia hurled words at each other and then let remnants of their bantering rain onto a page. Like if somebody needed to scream to release all their anxiety but found themselves barely comfortable even whispering until their faces turned purple trying with all their power to keep their story to room temperature.

I’m not sure I wanted to fill a gap in the literary canon with Three Alarm Fire as much as follow a lineage, a tradition, long set by writers such as Ishmael Reed, Roberto Bolaño, and Clarice Lispector—in other words, step into the courage they embodied to challenge the bounds of storytelling and its abilities to incorporate the pains of an afflicted world. I’ve also enjoyed and been nourished by the works of Alejandro Zambra, Salvador Plascencia, Julian Delgado Lopera, Carribean Fragoza, Urayoán Noel, and other Latine writers, including more recently Ananda Lima, who’ve found joy and literary freedom in playful experimentation with points of view, style, and approaches to creative practice.

What are two central themes in your book that you connect with the most and why?

The central thread in Three Alarm Fire is precisely its title. A three-alarm fire is the first level in the multiple alarm fire designation, broadly defined as a severe fire that is hard to contain. But because it’s only the first category in that multiple alarm fire designation, we’re also able to put out a three-alarm fire before it becomes catastrophic, before the flames consume everything.

This story collection is broken up into sets of threes, and in each subsection of the book, there’s some kind of tragedy, some kind of fire, the characters are coping with and having to cope through. Gender violence. Encounters with authority. Guns. But there are also sections of the book in which characters navigate those very things that bring reprieve in a broken world. Love. Sex. Art. I love every subset of the book, and in the journey a reader takes reading these short fictions, they get to work their literary way from isolation into the realization (and complexities) of self and community.

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If a book was home, where would your home be?

Three Alarm Fire would be fifteen-story apartment building in West New York, NJ. The town sits rights across the Hudson River from Manhattan, and it’s a soup of contradictions. Its density makes it difficult to navigate by car and difficult to pin down culturally. I grew up there in the 80s and 90s, and in so many ways the place feels the same: alert, opportunistic, tense. You can get what you need without ever really having to speak English, and the array of flags feels both pluralistic and nationalistic, every trouble and complication, racial and familial and regional, just an extension of every problem from every country those who live there immigrated from. The characters in Three Alarm Fire feel like the children and grandchildren of this place, at home nowhere because they had to sever their home just to scrape by, just to get out.

If your book was a famous musician who would it be?

I love this question because I’ve long thought of Three Alarm Fire as the literary version of The Clash’s London Calling. The double album, the band’s third album, is this meaty work that compiles all the band’s musical influences and experimentations and which arranges the tracks in such a way that feels like both a tonal progression and a choppy experience—this wonderful punk imperfection. Three Alarm Fire carries those same sensibilities, a compilation of all these different voices that can feel both jagged and logical, and the book reflects all that I find wonderful and powerful about storytelling and about the practice of fiction writing.

What comfort food could a reader pair with your book?

Empanadas, maybe. Bistec empanizado, absolutely. Platanos frito, for damn sure. But I can’t say why. They just all feel right for different portions of the book. But, as I write this, I guess it comes down to 1) the time and effort it takes to prepare these foods; 2) the variations of crispiness and chewiness and just straight dissolution in your mouth; and 3) the grease—these foods leave quite the visual impression.

In what ways has access (or little to no access) to Hispanic/Latinx/e literature defined you as a writer?

I had no access to Latine literature as a kid, but I didn’t really know what I was missing because I also wasn’t looking for it. I saw myself every day in the images and mannerisms of my mother, my grandmother, my aunts and my uncles. With the exception of some cousins who were born here, we were all immigrants, and we were all strange to this place, and even though we were all strange to each other, too, in our own ways, we were also at home with each other and in each other’s stories, even in the face of all the friction natural to every big extended family. It wasn’t until high school that my dad introduced me to the histories of the Americas, the literatures across the diasporas—the breadth of it all just overwhelmed me. And it wasn’t until college that I needed all those literatures to fill an emotional void that the traditional U.S. canon, as it had started to become concrete for me, just didn’t fill. I don’t think I can overstate how important it was for me to look for all these works and find them, which, of course, was never easy. But it mattered to have a reliable group of friends at the tail end of college and afterwards, these formative friendships that meant everything to me intellectually and socially. We’d trade jabs at each other with every book recommendation, trade sips of each other’s drinks after every random Spanish language play or movie or concert we’d go to, engage in deep conversation about the state of Latine culture in between every sweaty bout on a dance floor, even the dance spaces we had to make for ourselves. It was easy, of course, to explore Latine culture in New York in the early aughts, especially in that post-9/11 haze when for years nothing really felt certain or easy. There was so much being created. There was so much to be challenged by. I will always pair this ultimate access to, this wider discovery of, Latine literatures and culture with this time of my life. These texts and experiences met me in the span of a decade as the fullness of what I was going to decide for myself creatively started to come into full view.

Where can readers keep up with your work?

People can keep up with me on social media (@JCReyesian) where I post randomly about family, kids, travel, books, and friends in no coordinated way. And there’s my website www.jcreyeswriter.com, that I too occasionally redesign to keep pace with how I’m feeling. For a few years, my website resembled a random number generator where you’d only get one page at a time, no menu, and every click on the page would take you to some random page on the site. However, for the run-up to this book, I have made things much easier for everyone (which I’m sure my publisher is grateful for).

Thank you to Juan Carlos Reyes for taking the time to chat with me about his book! Please please make sure you purchase a copy (or request your local library carry a copy) #SupportLatinxLit!

Juan Carlos Reyes's stories, poems and essays have appeared in Ascentos Review, KGB Lit, and Hawai'i Review, among others. He is a 2018 Jack Straw Writers Fellow and is currently an Assistant Professor of creative writing at Seattle University. He is also the chief editor at Big Fiction magazine. He is the recipient of the Artist Trust 2018 LaSalle Storyteller Award in Fiction.

Synopsis for Three Alarm Fire: With a diverse set of characters and experiences, Juan Carlos Reyes's debut fiction collection examines the range of grief and healing we navigate as Americans. Reyes explores themes of immigration, identity, family legacy, sexuality, trauma, and what belonging means, as well as the cultural tensions between us that can be downright explosive.

By turns tragic and heartfelt, arresting and funny, Three Alarm Fire is a microcosm of modern life, and it introduces readers to an incisive new voice in contemporary fiction.

The best way you can support Latinx/e authors and Latinx/e literature is by doing the following:

REQUEST that your local library carry a copy

PURCHASE a copy of the book for a friend, family member, or your nemesis (hey! I’m sure they read too).

SHOUT about the book on any social media platform you might have or to your friends and family!

SHARE this interview widely! Word of mouth does wonders for connecting readers to books.

REVIEW their books on any website that sells books!

How are you holding up? In case you missed my previous issues or are new here, before we jump into a new author interview/book feature, I want to check in on you. I also like to see this as my weekly reminder to check in with myself. So please feel free to reply out loud to yourself, reply in the comments, or you can always feel free to reply to this email, too. I truly believe community sustains, and I’m grateful to be able to be in community with you here.

At this moment, I’m feeling a bit like one of those crying gifs floating around the internet, which might come as a surprise to my wife, who asked me just yesterday how I’m doing. My response yesterday was, “I’m doing GOOD,” and I really felt like I meant it. This morning, though, I woke up tired and feeling irritable. Thanks to THERAPY (in my Beyoncé renaissance voice), I was able to identify that emotion. So today was all about making space for two things: feeling irritable at just about everything and anything (without judgment or actions) and feeling sadness at the fact that I didn’t wake up like my yesterday self.

I think for me, the hard thing to remember with all the madness we are collectively seeing and experiencing is that it’s normal that my feelings are fluctuating. I can’t always be the self that is “doing GOOD” without also making space for all the parts of me that aren’t doing so well. I walked a lot today, and that helped. I also was able to ask myself, what might that part of me that feels irritable need? And that felt like a good step toward continuing forward.

Another good step…..sharing with you all a few things that have brought me some joy these past few days:

Things bringing me joy

1. Celebrating someone else. Earlier this week, my wife had a pretty big meeting/presentation. I got to tune in and watch her. Seeing her show up and “kill it,” even though I knew how nervous she was, filled me with so much pride and joy.

2. THERAPY. Period. That’s the post lol.

3. Picking up a book a friend of mine gushed about while we were in that bookstore. The friend’s name might be familiar to you because she’s an incredibly talented writer/author — Jamila Minnicks, author of Moonrise Over New Jessup. Jamila and I were discussing what books we’ve been reading after her phenomenal conversation with fellow writer and friend Irvin Weathersby Jr, author of In Open Contempt: Confronting White Supremacy in Art and Public Space. Jamila mentioned how she’d read Love by Toni Morrison several times and said something to the effect that she reads Toni Morrison’s collection because she considers herself a student. That made me run over to find a copy and purchase it immediately. I wish I could remember exactly what and how she said it, but the point is her words shifted something in my system. It made me want to grab a highlighter and pen and get to studying, too. So, in the evenings, with a highlighter and pen close by, you can find me curled up with Love under a reading light. That has brought me so much joy that when I wake up, all I can think about is getting to the end of the day, so I grab my book, reading light, pen, and highlighter.

4. More bookish friendships! The internet’s favorite Dad, AKA (and one of my favorite bookish people on the planet) announced their book tour stops this week. Guess who gets to CLOWN around with them in D.C. to talk about their hilariously-tender-lesbian-clown-novel? ME- this Sagittarius clown right here. Jokes aside, Stop Me If You’ve Heard This One is the first book I read and loved this year. If you haven’t heard of it or haven’t added it to your TBR yet, you MUST. It’s a book I urge everyone to pre-order this year. I’m deeply honored not only to get to chat with Kristen but to be able to call them my friend and Dad #goals. I did a little write-up Stop Me If You’ve Heard This One for TODAY’s 50 books we can’t wait to read in 2025 and here’s what I said about it:

Working at an aquarium and pet store in Orlando, Cherry Hendricks dreams of becoming a full-time professional clown. But she can’t seem to get out of her own way — that is it seems, until she connects with Margot the Magnificent, an established lesbian magician, via a dating app. This is a hilarious and ingenious novel for anyone who’s ever felt like a misfit.

If you find yourself in Washington D.C., on March 19th at 7 PM, come hang out with us and my bookshop girlfriend- Loyalty Books —for every queer and bookish evening. Register here.

What is something that has brought you joy today?

In bookish love,

P.S. In case you missed last week’s issue, make sure to check it out too! It comes with graphic novel recommendations:

#NuevasPáginas is a space that aims to amplify and spotlight Hispanic/Latine/x authors with newly published books. The goal is to connect readers to their next favorite Hispanic/Latine/x authored book through a mini casual get-to-know-the-book-and-author interview. So please help me connect to more readers. So that together we can continue to build the love/support of Latine literature!

Without further ado…our special guest author for today’s Nuevas Pagina issue is…Désirée Zamorano author of Dispossessed!

(Photo credit student Ana Sosa)

Could you tell me a bit about where this photo was taken? Is it special to your book in some way?

The photo is taken at California State University, Long Beach, where I teach our hidden American histories. My students, the majority of whom are planning on being elementary school teachers, inspire me semester after semester. Each year we read about history not taught k-12. I wrote this novel, in part, for them.

Grab a copy of the book here!

Tell me about your book without telling me about your book - share any literary inspirations behind your book! If there are none, the gap you wanted to fill in the literary canon with your book

Our (Mexican) American history is rarely represented in texts, movies or novels. I kept waiting for a great American novelist to tackle the mass expulsion of Mexican Americans and Mexican Nationals in the 1930s. After waiting years, I realized I needed to write the story I desperately wanted to read.

At Cal State Long Beach each semester I teach students who plan to be elementary school teachers. I revel in opening the eyes of my students, to these and other historical injustices that they are not typically taught k-12. I do this not to depress or overwhelm them, but to light a fire under them to make this country, this world, a better place.

For years I had been baffled that there is not a novel out that addresses these issues. And I kept waiting to read that novel. Year after year I would teach part of this, the expatriation of Mexican Americans and Mexican nationals, alongside other events, until in 2018 I finally realized that I would have to write that book. The novelist I had been waiting for was me.

A few years ago I watched the documentary No más bebés produced by Virginia Espino that documented the sterilization of women in LA County USC Medical Center in the 1960s and 70s. I knew about this practice in other parts of the world, in other parts of the country, but in my state and county? It is appalling.

What are two central themes in your book that you connect with the most and why?

My themes are family separation and the endurance of family love because these resonate with me on an emotional level.

What conversations do you hope your book stirs up?

Most people have no idea that two million Mexican Americans and Mexican nationals were ejected from this country in the 1930s. Let me underline that: US Citizens were kicked out of our country. We are the only demographic this has happened to. I hope there are conversations around why this is something that is not commonly known. We cannot maintain a democracy when we are ignorant of our history. These dramatic events impact us to this day, on who we consider a “citizen” or worthy of immigration and who we do not. The fact that we build a wall on the southern border and not on the northern. The fact that DACA dreamers are citizens in all ways except a birth certificate.

In addition to the historical themes, I hope people connect with the dignity of my characters as they continue to build their lives.

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What was something you learned while writing your book? In what ways did it change you?

I began this novel in 2018. Soon afterwards the US government began separating families at the southern border. As painful as this was, I learned how contemporary and relevant this historical fiction novel is, and how important that more people know about it.

If a book was home, where would your home be?

A humble cottage, surrounded by flowering shrubbery, in Chavez Ravine (now Dodger Stadium)

If your book was a famous musician who would it be?

It would be the Trio Los Panchos- whose gorgeous vocals and instrumentals pluck at the listener’s heartstrings, as I hope my story will.

What comfort food could a reader pair with your book?

Mounds of pork chile verde, with rice, beans, and piles of slightly charred flour tortillas, a call back to both Lizette and Amparo’s cooking.

In what ways has access (or little to no access) to Hispanic/Latinx/e literature defined you as a writer?

I came of writing age before Sandra Cisneros was an icon, before the internet of connected communities. I could not find myself in the written world-my first published stories had no sense of ethnic background, and, ironically, won awards. When I sat down to write my novel, I anticipated spending years with my characters. I wanted them to be like me, like the world I knew, my community, with all of our complexity. I wanted visible representation, I wanted to deepen our portrayals. Four novels later, The Amado Women was published. This year, Dispossessed is published.

Where can readers keep up with your work?

At my website - please sign up for my newsletter and explore the links to my selected works! Instagram and Twitter: @ladeziree

The Amado Women will be re-released in 2025 by Lee and Low Press, and the University of Nevada will be publishing a collection of my short stories in 2026.

Don't forget to grab a copy of the book!

Thank you to Désirée Zamorano for taking the time to chat with me about her book! Please please make sure you purchase a copy (or request your local library carry a copy) #SupportLatinxLit!

Désirée Zamorano is the author of the highly acclaimed literary novel, The Amado Women. An award-winning short story writer, her work is often an exploration of issues of invisibility, injustice or inequity. Her writing appears in Alta, Catapult, and The Kenyon Review. Her novel Dispossessed from Rize drops September 10.

Synopsis for Dispossessed: Manuel Galvan is separated from his parents and sister during the mass expulsion of Mexicans and Mexican Americans in the 1930s. He grows from a small, lost and confused boy into a wandering and angry teenager pushed out of high school and into the dockyards. Later as a loyal, passionate husband he is a man searching for a life of value and dignity despite his losses. Set against the backdrop of (Mexican) American history in Los Angeles, forced deportations, the demolition of Chavez Ravine, sterilization of Latinas, student protests and rising political consciousness, this story spans his life, from 6 to 60, and his search for his missing family, the missing pieces of his life.

The best way you can support Latinx/e authors and Latinx/e literature is by doing the following:

REQUEST that your local library carry a copy

PURCHASE a copy of the book for a friend, family member, or your nemesis (hey! I’m sure they read too).

SHOUT about the book on any social media platform you might have or to your friends and family!

SHARE this interview widely! Word of mouth does wonders for connecting readers to books.

REVIEW their books on any website that sells books!

How are you holding up? In case you missed my previous issues or are new here, before we jump into a new author interview/book feature, I want to check in on you. You are welcome to reply out loud to yourself or reply in the comments. As someone who is learning how to check in with myself, it’s a helpful reminder, too. And if it’s helpful to know, my “How are you holding up?” fluctuates a lot throughout the day. Sometimes the answer is “I’m not holding on very well. I think I need _____” and sometimes it’s a confident “I’m doing the best I can, and that is enough.” I’m trying to let all the parts of me that feel different things show up without any judgment so as not to create any inner turmoil. There’s plenty of that on the outside. You can always feel free to reply to this email too. I truly believe community sustains and I’m grateful to be able to be in community with you here.

Today’s featured book could not have come at a better time. Last week, I came across this article. I was a little taken aback by the following:

“According to the School Library Journal’s most recent survey, 55% of librarians said teachers opposed them because they were not “real books,” while 48% said parents felt this way.”

As someone who loves the graphic novel genre, particularly the graphic novel memoir genre. I found this so sad. So I shared the following on Threads:

I still feel like this. Graphic novels are “real” books. It’s one of the most unique forms of storytelling that I’ve personally felt engages different parts of my brain. I know as a society, we talk a lot about poetry and the spaces within poems. Similarly, there are spaces in between the images in graphic novels that ask the reader to not just sit with the images but to make their own inferences. To participate in the storytelling. I’m glad to get to feature in today’s issue, a graphic novel. Also, I’ve included a Graphic Novels TBR list below for adults. If you’ve never given the genre a try, consider this your starter pack.

Graphic Novels TBR (for adults):

Good Talk: A Memoir in Conversations by Mira Jacob

Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi

Seek You: A Journey Through American Loneliness by Kristen Radtke

Are You My Mother? A Comic Drama by Alison Bechdel

Feeding Ghosts by Tessa Hulls

The Best We Could Do by Thi Bui

That’s just the start. I’ve created a list on bookshop.org with these titles. And I’ll be adding more! If you have a recommendation/favorite graphic novel — tell me about it in the comment section.

In bookish love,

#NuevasPáginas is a space that aims to amplify and spotlight Hispanic/Latine/x authors with newly published books. The goal is to connect readers to their next favorite Hispanic/Latine/x authored book through a mini casual get-to-know-the-book-and-author interview. So please help me connect to more readers. So that together we can continue to build the love/support of Latine literature!

Without further ado…our special guest author for today’s Nuevas Pagina issue is…Marcela T. Garcés author of Me Llamo Marcela: My Story as a Heritage Speaker!

Could you tell me a bit about where this photo was taken? Is it special to your book in some way?

This photo was taken at Siena College in Upstate New York where I’ve worked since 2010. The campus represents an important life destination. My book begins in my childhood when English was my dominant language, and the Spanish language was secondary. I take the reader through many more stops on my journey of committing to learn Spanish when I was a teenager ending at the final stop: I am now a Full Professor of Spanish, and I teach and use the language every day.

Grab a copy of the book here!

Tell me about your book without telling me about your book - share any literary inspirations behind your book! If there are none, the gap you wanted to fill in the literary canon with your book

The aesthetic and storyline of Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi was an inspiration for me and my brother Andrés Garcés, who is the illustrator of the book. Nick Sousanis’s book Unflattening is another graphic narrative we both read and discussed while creating this book. With regard to other literary inspirations, Jhumpa Lahiri’s work informed my work in terms of how she touches on themes of memory and immigration. The work of Federico García Lorca and filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar are long-term inspirations for me, especially how they each use symbols and strong characters.

I wanted to fill a gap in the graphic novel literary canon by presenting a story about the unique needs of heritage speakers. Portraying identity rooted in language through the accessible graphic format felt like the natural way to do this as I see the book as an educational tool that people can read in one sitting, and then ideally discuss it in a class or group setting.

What are two central themes in your book that you connect with the most and why?

First, that being persistent to reach language proficiency (and other goals!) pays off. Second, that our identities are ours to define.

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If a book was home, where would your home be?

This one is hard to answer because there are several places where I feel at home in the world. If I had to choose, it would be the Basque Country in Northern Spain, my husband Yuri’s homeland and my adopted one. There’s nowhere quite like it, and we spend our life between there and Upstate New York. It’s a place with a lot of sensory input: a misty rain called sirimiri, the smell of fresh pastries, so many shades of green, a really walkable place, and of course, home to the best food I’ve ever tasted.

If your book was a famous musician who would it be?

Manu Chao. He blends multiple languages and cultures in his music, resulting in a creative concoction of sounds and places, and has family and roots in different places just like me.

What comfort food could a reader pair with your book?

Patacones – fried plantain chips, because they appear in my book!

In what ways has access (or little to no access) to Hispanic/Latinx/e literature defined you as a writer?

Discovering the book How the García Girls Lost their Accents by Julia Alvarez represented a before and after literary moment for me. She was the first author I read who sprinkled Spanish into her work, mixing it with English. When I learned this was possible it was an invitation to the idea that I could write like that, because Spanish and English exist together in my mind. I had read a lot of work in Spanish before discovering Alvarez, but her bilingual style and the themes she wrote about really had an impact on my work.

Where can readers keep up with your work?

• LinkedIn: Marcela T. Garcés

Don't forget to grab a copy of the book!

Thank you to Marcela T. Garcés for taking the time to chat with me about her book! Please please make sure you purchase a copy (or request your local library carry a copy) #SupportLatinxLit!

Marcela T. Garcés is Professor of Spanish at Siena College near Albany, New York, where she teaches a range of courses on the Spanish-speaking world, focusing on topics from fashion and film to cuisine. She has authored scholarly works in these areas as well as creative pieces in English and Spanish. She and her husband, Yuri, also operate La Centralita Culinary Studio, teaching the community about the cuisines of Spain. Marcela loves motivating students of all ages on their unique language and cultural journeys.

Synopsis for Me Llamo Marcela:

On her first day of middle school Spanish class, Marcela thought she'd excel--after all, she'd grown up speaking Spanish at home and on visits to family in Colombia. Instead, she quickly felt like a confused imposter, unsure how a language that was part of her heritage and identity could so elude her. And so, at age thirteen, with the help of her Spanish teacher Doña Maribel, Marcela began her formal journey studying Spanish. She never anticipated how much she'd discover about learning a language and what it means to be a heritage speaker--someone who grows up using a language at home but often lacks more formal knowledge of it. In this charming graphic memoir that captures a little-discussed aspect of growing up multicultural, Marcela recounts her earliest Spanish teachers: Colombian street vendors, family members who shouted or whispered words, and her beloved Doña Maribel, who helped her connect the Spanish of her youth with what she was learning in the classroom. Childhood memories from trips to Colombia intertwine with her adolescence, when Marcela resolves to study the language for herself, not because people correct her or expect her to speak it well but because she wants to learn. This comic, drawn by Marcela's brother Andrés, shows the complicated path of language and identity that Marcela travels as a heritage speaker.

The best way you can support Latinx/e authors and Latinx/e literature is by doing the following:

REQUEST that your local library carry a copy

PURCHASE a copy of the book for a friend, family member, or your nemesis (hey! I’m sure they read too).

SHOUT about the book on any social media platform you might have or to your friends and family!

SHARE this interview widely! Word of mouth does wonders for connecting readers to books.

REVIEW their books on any website that sells books!

Happy Love Day ❤️🥹! I know folks have different feelings about this “holiday”, and I welcome them all, which is why I prefer to call it Love Day over Valentine’s Day. Ultimately, it’s another day to wish/send love. So whatever you do today, know that I wish you love in all its infinite forms.

Also, I know I’m a few days off our regular Tuesday drop-in schedule and I missed an issue of ‘The Sunday Shelf’ but I have a couple of good reasons. My Kid celebrated a birthday and we made a wish of his come true:

My Kid not only wanted to see an alligator, but he wanted to see one in the Everglades. I have a whole The Sunday Shelf issue I want to write about that would reflect on how beautiful it’s been to have the opportunity to not only follow his interests but get to create new experiences around them. That’s coming in the future sometime, but for now, I’ll leave you with these two images. One was taken on an airboat we hopped on via the Miccosukee Airboat tours of the Everglades, and the other is catching an Alligator chilling right in the sun on the perimeter of the surviving village of the Miccosukee Tribe deep in the Everglades. Afterward, we did a whole day at the beach, taking in some sun and waves. We had such a wonderful, quick trip to Florida. It was much needed. And sharing this experience feels perfect for today’s author feature.

I will be back in your inbox on Sunday (or maybe Monday, we’ll see how the weekend goes 😅). I will leave you with special bookish Valentine’s Day cards I made to inspire you to pick up some of my favorite queer books of 2025 (so far). You can catch them on Instagram here. And I’m including one below:

In bookish LOVE (always),

#NuevasPáginas is a space that aims to amplify and spotlight Hispanic/Latine/x authors with newly published books. The goal is to connect readers to their next favorite Hispanic/Latine/x authored book through a mini casual get-to-know-the-book-and-author interview. So please help me connect to more readers. So that together we can continue to build the love/support of Latine literature!

Without further ado…our special guest author for today’s Nuevas Página issue is….Mariana Ríos Ramírez author of Abuelita’s Gift: A Dia De Los Muertos Story!

Could you tell me a bit about where this photo was taken? Is it special to your book in some way?

I took this photo in my backyard on the day I received the advance reader copies of Abuelita’s Gift:A Día de Muertos Story and El regalo de abuelita: Un cuento de Día de Muertos. I’m wearing an embroidered blouse which is a typical handcraft from México. I thought it was very appropriate to wear it to celebrate the special occasion since this book is about a beloved Mexican tradition.

What inspired you to write this book?

I wrote Abuelita’s Gift: A Día de Muertos Story to share a piece of México with kids around the world. Día de Muertos is a beloved tradition in my country, and it’s celebrated by many people in different ways depending on each region. However, what I love most is that it’s a time to celebrate the life of our ancestors and to honor their memories, by being joyful instead of sad.

Grab a copy of the book here!

When my family moved to the USA in 2016 due to my husband’s job, my children were faced with new traditions that we were not used to before. Since then we have embraced them, but for my husband and I, it was also important that our kids had their own Mexican traditions. In this particular case, Día de Muertos allows us to feel connected to México, but also to our family and ancestors. It’s the perfect opportunity to share with our children the memories we have of our grandparents, great grandparents, and other dear relatives. This is a tradition I hope my kids will keep on celebrating as they grow up.

For these reasons, I wrote Abuelita’s Gift: A Día de Muertos Story. To share, as I did with my kids, a glimpse of this beautiful tradition; and in doing so, it became a personal story in many ways. It doesn’t only remind me of my own family, but also of those feelings of love and connection that are always there with loved ones, even if they are not around us anymore, at least not physically.

What are two central themes in your book that you connect with the most and why?

One of the main themes in this book is that the love of family never ends. Even if our loved ones are no longer with us, the strong connection and feelings towards them transcend time and space. This is how we keep them alive in our hearts and memories even if they’re gone.

Another theme I connect with is the fact that the best gifts always come from the heart, which not only makes them so special, but it’s also how they become gifts for the givers too.

I hope that young readers will be able to take away these messages after they read the book, and that the story will spark their curiosity to wonder about their own ancestors and where they come from.

What were some of your favorite books growing up?

As a child I was a huge fan of fairy tales, and I still am today. At home we used to have books with collections of stories written by the Grimm brothers, Hans Christian Andersen, and Charles Perrault. We also cherished Aesop’s fables. I remember my mom reading these classic stories to my brother and me, and then I’d do it by myself. Among my favorite tales there’s Cinderella, Hansel and Gretel, The Little Mermaid, and the Ugly Duckling.

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If a book was home, where would your home be?

My home would definitely be in México, with my extended family, which is what I miss most now that I live far away from where I grew up.

If your book was a famous musician who would it be?

Chavela Vargas would be my choice. She’s is a Costa-Rican and Mexican singer who is famous for her emotional, heartfelt, and unique interpretation of the traditional folk song “La Llorona”. This song has become associated with Día de Muertos because of its themes of mourning, loss, and remembrance which tie in with the celebration.

What comfort food could a reader pair with your book?

Definitely pan de muerto. It’s not only very traditional and delicious, but also a symbol of the celebration of Día de Muertos, as it represents the cycle of life and death. I’d personally pair it with a cup of hot chocolate.

In what ways has access (or little to no access) to Hispanic/Latinx/e literature defined you as a writer?

My career as a writer is quite recent. Although I always liked writing, it was until a few years ago that I began to consider writing for children seriously, and it had to do a lot with my own kids. For this reason, I wouldn’t say that Hispanic or Latinx/e literature had much influence in me becoming an author. However, now as a Mexican children’s book writer living in another country, I find myself wanting to share aspects of my culture, traditions, and language through my books.

I’ve realized how growing up I didn’t see myself in the fairy tales I loved reading so much; so now, through my books, I want to contribute to the increase in diverse representation in children’s literature. I hope that kids with similar backgrounds and heritage to mine get to see themselves reflected in the characters of my books. Not just in the way they might look like, but also in the type of life situations they face, the adventures they have, and the places in which their stories unfold.

At the same time my goal is that my books can be windows for children of different backgrounds so they can learn a bit more about another culture, language, and its traditions by flipping the pages of my stories.

Where can readers keep up with your work?

I’d be happy to connect through social media and/or my website.

Social Media Links

Instagram/Threads: @marianariosr

Twitter: @marianariosrmz1

Bluesky: @marianarios.bsky.social

Linktree: linktr.ee/MarianaRiosR

Website: www.marianariosramirez.com

Don't forget a copy of the book!

Thank you to Mariana Ríos Ramírez for taking the time to chat with me about her book! Please please make sure you purchase a copy (or request your local library carry a copy) #SupportLatinxLit!

Mariana Ríos Ramírez is a Mexican children’s book author who loves sharing elements of her culture, language, and traditions through her stories. She’s the author of Santiago’s Dinosaurios (Albert Whitman & Co. - 2022), Abuelita’s Gift: A Día de Muertos Story (Knopf Books for Young Readers – 2024) and it’s Spanish edition El regalo de abuelita: Un cuento de Día de Muertos. She’s a member of SCBWI, Las Musas, and Rate Your Story.

Besides writing, Mariana loves photography, traveling, and spending time with family and friends. She currently resides in Anderson, South Carolina with her husband, two kids, and a Chihuahua dog named Rogers.

Synopsis for Abuelita’s Gift:

Julieta is eager to honor her Abuelita's spirit on Día de Muertos, but struggles to find the perfect gift. A touching story that celebrates ancestors and teaches that the most meaningful tributes come from the heart illustrated by award-winning Sara Palacios.

Julieta is excited for Abuelita's spirit to visit on Día de los Muertos. She is determined to find the perfect gift to honor Abuelita and to show how much she misses her. However, her ideas fail one by one and Julieta grows worried.
It is only when Julieta embraces the memories she once shared with her abuelita, that she realizes the perfect gift comes from the heart. An uplifting story about both life and death, family, and the threads that connect us, long after we are gone.

The best way you can support Latinx/e authors and Latinx/e literature is by doing the following:

REQUEST that your local library carry a copy

PURCHASE a copy of the book for a friend, family member, or your nemesis (hey! I’m sure they read too).

SHOUT about the book on any social media platform you might have or to your friends and family!

SHARE this interview widely! Word of mouth does wonders for connecting readers to books.

REVIEW their books on any website that sells books!

How are you doing? If you missed my last #NuevasPáginas issue, I mentioned the fact that I’m asking because I genuinely want to know. Please feel free to let me know how you are feeling in the comments. I want this to be a space you can lean on with so much going on in the world. If you prefer to keep it private, feel free to reply to this email.

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I am trying very hard to navigate stress. I don’t know if anyone else feels this way, but there are parts of me that work very hard to protect me from tough ongoing news in the world by distracting me with other things, making jokes, or feeling like this is all happening to someone else. I’m not great at processing things in real-time. That means I carry a lot of unprocessed stress, and it shows up physically in my body. I share that to say that I hope you can find some time to check in with yourself. Be kind to yourself and give yourself grace. Do something that brings you joy.

One of the things that brings me joy is getting to introduce you all to new Latine authors via these emails. Reading through this interview reminded me that we have books, and we have each other.

In bookish love,

#NuevasPáginas is a space that aims to amplify and spotlight Hispanic/Latine/x authors with newly published books. The goal is to connect readers to their next favorite Hispanic/Latine/x authored book through a mini casual get-to-know-the-book-and-author interview. So please help me connect to more readers. So that together we can continue to build the love/support of Latine literature!

Without further ado…our special guest author for today’s Nuevas Pagina issue is…Orlando Ortega-Medina author of The Fitful Sleep of Immigrants!

Could you tell me a bit about where this photo was taken? Is it special to your book in some way?

This photo was taken at the launch event for The Fitful Sleep of Immigrants at Book Soup in West Hollywood, California. During my time at UCLA, Book Soup was my favorite bookstore due to its fierce independence and its ability to attract intriguing and notable authors for events. Being able to launch my novel there was a dream come true. In the photo, you can see Daniel A. Olivas (author of Chicano Frankenstein and How to Date a Flying Mexican), who interviewed me at the event, standing beside me, along with my husband William. Together, we represent three distinct Latino identities—Mexican, Cuban, and Salvadoran—which is something I strive to highlight in my books to challenge the stereotype that all Latinos are homogenous.

Grab a copy of the book here!

Tell me about your book without telling me about your book - share any literary inspirations behind your book! If there are none, the gap you wanted to fill in the literary canon with your book

While The Fitful Sleep of Immigrants is known for its compelling blend of family drama and legal thriller elements, its heart lies in exploring the intricate journeys of migration to and from the United States. Inspired by a rich tapestry of characters hailing from Cuba, Mexico, El Salvador, Lebanon, Syria, England, Canada, and Japan, the novel reflects diverse personal narratives shaped by the immigrant experiences. This diversity of nationalities represents a unique contribution aimed at enriching the literary canon.

What conversations do you hope your book stirs up?

While we're familiar with what draws many immigrants to the United States, my novel explores the lesser-known reality of what compels people, including native-born Americans like the main characters in my book and myself, to leave. This is a conversation I hope my novel will spark.

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What was something you learned while writing your book? In what ways did it change you?

I initially wrote the first draft of my novel years ago and was discouraged from finishing it due to some negative feedback. I put it away and forgot about it. During one of the COVID quarantines, I stumbled across it again and decided to dust it off and rewrite it. I sent the revised version to Michael Nava, Managing Editor of Amble Press and a talented novelist himself, and within a month, I had a publishing contract. This experience taught me that what may seem like a lost cause at one point in life can turn into a brilliant opportunity later on. It has made me more optimistic.

If a book was home, where would your home be?

If my book were a home, it would be a sprawling desert retreat, where unending vistas of land and sky stretch in all directions without boundaries to delineate ownership. This metaphorical home embodies the mysterious vastness and yearning for freedom that resonate through the narrative. Inside, each room would be adorned with vibrant paintings reflecting the diverse journeys of its characters, capturing the essence of migration, family dynamics, and personal identity. The atmosphere would be serene yet filled with the echoes of stories, offering readers a sanctuary to explore the intricate emotions and experiences woven into its pages.

If your book was a famous musician who would it be?

If my book were a famous musician, it would be Joan Baez. Like Baez's music, my book resonates with themes of justice, identity, and the human experience. Baez's powerful voice and commitment to social activism mirror the narrative of my book, which explores the complexities of migration, family dynamics, and personal transformation. Just as Baez's music inspires introspection and empathy, my book invites readers to delve into the emotional landscapes of its characters, fostering a deeper understanding of diverse perspectives and the universal quest for belonging. Both Baez's music and my book aim to provoke thought and conversation, challenging stereotypes and celebrating the richness of human diversity.

What comfort food could a reader pair with your book?

If my book were a comfort food, it would be a warm bowl of homemade pozole – vegan for me. Just as pozole is a hearty and nourishing dish that brings together diverse ingredients in a harmonious blend, my book weaves together the rich flavors of migration stories, family dynamics, and personal journeys. The comforting warmth of pozole reflects the emotional depth and resonance of the characters' experiences, inviting readers to savor each chapter like a spoonful of broth, filled with layers of texture and flavor. Enjoying a bowl of pozole while reading my book would enhance the sensory experience, providing both sustenance and satisfaction as the narrative unfolds.

Don't forget to grab a copy here!

In what ways has access (or little to no access) to Hispanic/Latinx/e literature defined you as a writer?

Growing up, my literary journey was deeply rooted in the classics of American and British literature, as well as a fascination with science fiction. Hispanic/Latinx literature was not readily accessible to me during those formative years. This absence prompted me to explore universal themes and storytelling techniques from the perspectives I did encounter. It challenged me to blend my own cultural experiences with broader literary traditions, creating a unique voice that draws from diverse influences. As a writer, this journey has shaped my approach to storytelling, inspiring me to bridge cultural gaps and highlight diverse narratives in my work. While my early exposure may have been limited, it sparked a passion for inclusivity and representation in literature, driving me to contribute meaningfully to the rich tapestry of Hispanic/Latinx storytelling today.

Where can readers keep up with your work?

All my books are available for purchase online and in some bookstores and libraries. I also have social media accounts with Instagram and X where I spout off from time to time.

Thank you to Orlando Ortega-Medina for taking the time to chat with me about his book! Please please make sure you purchase a copy (or request your local library carry a copy) #SupportLatinxLit!

I also wanted to share the good news that a few days after I got to chat with Orlando he was notified that The Fitful Sleep of Immigrants was longlisted for The Polari Book Prize. He share the following with me about it via email:

“The Polari Book Prize is the UK’s premier LGBTQ+ literary prize. They rarely list books with Latinx protagonists due to obvious demographic factors. As such, I’m particularly proud of this achievement and the visibility it brings to our community here in the UK!”

A huge congratulations to Orlando!

Orlando Ortega-Medina was born in Los Angeles to immigrants from Latin America. He studied English Literature at UCLA and has a Juris Doctor law degree from Southwestern University School of Law. At university, he won the National Society of Arts and Letters Award for Short Stories.

Following his admission to the bar in 1992, Ortega-Medina practiced criminal defence in Los Angeles. After four years, Ortega-Medina moved his practice to San Francisco in 1997, where he transitioned to representing clients in appeals and deportation defence.

In August 1999, Ortega-Medina and his life partner expatriated to Canada. And in 2005, taking advantage of Canada’s recognition of same-sex marriage, he and his life partner were among the first same-sex couples to marry at Montreal’s Hotel de Ville.

Ortega-Medina’s short story collection Jerusalem Ablaze was shortlisted for The Polari First Book Prize (2017). In 2018, he was named the Marilyn Hassid Emerging Author for the Houston Jewish Book & Arts Festival. He is the author of four novels novels, The Death of Baseball (2019), The Savior of 6th Street (2020), The Fitful Sleep of Immigrants (2023), and, forthcoming, Emerald Road (2025). Ortega-Medina lives in London.

Synopsis for The Fitful Sleep of Immigrants:

International Latino Book Awards 2024--Best LGBTQ+ Themed Book (Honorable Mention)

Award-winning author and immigration attorney Orlando Ortega-Medina returns to 1990s San Francisco in The Fitful Sleep of Immigrants, a powerful family drama that plays out within a captivating legal thriller.

Attorney Marc Mendes, the estranged son of a prominent rabbi and a burned-out lawyer with addiction issues, plots his exit from the big city to a more peaceful life in idyllic Napa Valley. But before he can realize his dream, the US government summons his Salvadoran life-partner Isaac Perez to immigration court, threatening him with deportation.

As Marc battles to save Isaac, his world is further upended by a dark and alluring client, who aims to tempt him away from his messy life. Torn between his commitment to Isaac and the pain-numbing escapism offered by his client, Marc is forced to choose between the lesser of two evils while confronting his twin demons of past addiction and guilt over the death of his first lover.

The Fitful Sleep of Immigrants is an extraordinary and timely tale about the value of family and friendship, loyalty and love, in the face of adversity.

The best way you can support Latinx/e authors and Latinx/e literature is by doing the following:

REQUEST that your local library carry a copy

PURCHASE a copy of the book for a friend, family member, or your nemesis (hey! I’m sure they read too).

SHOUT about the book on any social media platform you might have or to your friends and family!

SHARE this interview widely! Word of mouth does wonders for connecting readers to books.

REVIEW their books on any website that sells books!

Happy New Year? I state it as a question because, for me, the New Year hasn’t felt so “happy”. If you’ve been with this bookish newsletter a while or know me from social media, I am big on making space for real feelings. I want to be more honest about how I am truly feeling when people ask me how it’s going and lead less with “I’m okay”.

If this long month of January has taught me anything, it’s that I want to lean more into making space for all the feelings. So, how are you doing? I’m asking genuinely and want to make space for any level of honesty you want to share. If it’s been a Happy New Year — I want to hear that even if it hasn’t been felt great to me. If it’s been a tough one, I also want to hear about that too. With all the chaos in the world, I’m inclined to invest in my communities, and I hope you know I consider YOU someone I am in community with. I’m grateful you are here, I don’t take it for granted. So, if you have the space today, drop me a line in the comments of today’s issue.

I know the last #NuevasPáginas interview was titled “A Love Letter to Tucson”:

I figured what better way to return to sharing author interviews than continuing with the Tucson love. I have about 6-7, if not more, interviews in my backlog from last year to share with you all before we venture into interviews with Latine authors who have books coming in 2025, and I’m committed to getting them in your inboxes.

Today’s special guest author is the beginning, and I hope you’ll take a moment to learn a little about her book. I was talking to a friend who said she was spending time catching up on all the #NuevasPáginas author interviews, and I thought that was so special. I also told my friend that while I appreciate their commitment and support, I understand if not every interview piques an interest. I share that to say that I try my best to highlight a general theme for a book/author in the title of the email — please know it’s okay if you don’t get to them all. You being here is a huge support.

In bookish love,

#NuevasPáginas is a space that aims to amplify and spotlight Hispanic/Latine/x authors with newly published books. The goal is to connect readers to their next favorite Hispanic/Latine/x authored book through a mini casual get-to-know-the-book-and-author interview. So please help me connect to more readers. So that together we can continue to build the love/support of Latine literature!

Without further ado…our special guest author for today’s Nuevas Pagina issue is…Mele Martinez author of The Molino: A Memoir

Could you tell me a bit about where this photo was taken? Is it special to your book in some way?

This is a self-portrait taken at my writing desk in my home in central Tucson. I write about traveling back and forth between the West Side and East Side of Tucson as a kid. My adult home is now somewhere in the middle of East and West, so for me it symbolizes a kind of Tucson nepantla.

Tell me about your book without telling me about your book - share any literary inspirations behind your book! If there are none, the gap you wanted to fill in the literary canon with your book.

I think books voicing the experiences of Mexican Americans from Tucson / Sonora are underrepresented, so I hope The Molino helps to fill that gap. Certainly, Tucson authors like Patricia Preciado Martin and Lydia Otero were part of the inspiration for this book. I also draw a lot of inspiration from sacred texts which helped me create the language, perspective, and tone of the second narrator in the book, a spirit called El Pensamiento. He appears like a mythical character, inspired in part by iconic narrators like El Pachuco in Luis Valdez's Zoot Suit.

Grab a copy of the book here!

What kind of conversations are you hoping your book will provoke?

Beyond the familiar conversations about remembering parts of Tucson's food history, I hope this book helps people think more about our responses to gentrification and loss of cultural memory. I think it could also help us talk about how Mexican Americans, in particular, are represented or portrayed in society (both past and present) and how we might choose to tell our stories rather than having them told on our behalf.

What is something you learned while writing your book? In what ways did it change you?

I used to think that the way my family communicated and lived was so limited and simple, but I've learned that their language and expressions are more sophisticated and nuanced than I could ever imagine.

If a book was home, where would your home be?

Tucson.

If your book was a famous musician who would it be?

This is a tough one to answer, but I think I have to pick Linda Rondstadt. Rondstadt often collaborated with other voices in her music and likewise The Molino wants to present multiple voices. She sings biculturally/bilingually and across genres. Similarly, The Molino moves between the genres of creative nonfiction, fiction, and poetry and also employs Spanish to make the most of what is trying to be said in English while also communicating the cultural shifts happening over time. Both tell stories of getting out of where you grew up and of coming home. Rondstadt's music recognizes and honors family and ancestors, just as my book tries to do. Of course, both are also from Tucson

What comfort food could a reader pair with your book?

So many! Tamales, tacos, tortillas, cocidos, enchiladas, quesadillas, barbacoa, rice and beans, guacamole, chips and salsa, taco salad, ceviche, chile con carne, coctel de elote, bean and cheese burritos, pico de gallo, watermelon, snickers bars, and cinnamon tea over crushed ice.

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In what ways has access (or little to no access) to Hispanic/Latinx/e literature defined you as a writer?

The access that I had to books like House on Mango Street, Drink Cultura, and Days of Plenty, Days of Want, had a huge impact on me in high school and during my undergrad years. Before that, I wasn't much interested in reading books. In those books, I recognized that someone like myself could become a writer. Though I wasn't exposed to many writers that I connected to, these books helped me see myself as a person who could finish reading a whole book, and maybe someday finish writing one too.

Where can readers keep up with your work?

I'm on IG @melemartinez and my website is www.melemartinez.com

Don't forget to grab a copy!

Huge thank you to Mele Martinez for taking the time to chat with me her book! Please please make sure you purchase a copy (or request your local library carry a copy) #SupportLatinxLit!

Melani “Mele” Martinez is a Senior Lecturer in the University of Arizona Writing Program and faculty lead for Project ADELANTE’s Testimonios in the Borderlands. Her first book, The Molino, is a memoir about faith, belonging, and the closing of her family’s celebrated tamaleria in downtown Tucson.

Synopsis for The Molino: A Memoir:

Set in one of Tucson's first tamal and tortilla factories, The Molino is a hybrid memoir that reckons with one family's loss of home, food, and faith.

Weaving together history, culture, and Mexican food traditions, Melani Martinez shares the story of her family's life and work in the heart of their downtown eatery, El Rapido. Opened by Martinez's great-grandfather, Aurelio Perez, in 1933, El Rapido served tamales and burritos to residents and visitors to Tucson's historic Barrio Presidio for nearly seventy years. For the family, the factory that bound them together was known for the giant corn grinder churning behind the scenes--the molino. With clear eyes and warm humor, Martinez documents the work required to prepare food for others, and explores the heartbreaking aftermath of gentrification that forces the multigenerational family business to close its doors.

The Molino is also Martinez's personal story--that of a young Tucsonense coming of age in the 1980s and '90s. As a young woman she rejects the work in her father's popular kitchen, but when the business closes, her world shifts and the family disbands. When she finds her way back home, the tortillería's iconic mural provides a gateway into history and ruin, ancestry and sacrifice, industrial myth and artistic incarnation--revealing a sacred presence still alive in Tucson.

A must-read for foodies, history lovers, and anyone searching for spiritual truth in the desert, this is a story of belonging and transformation in the borderlands.

The best way you can support Latinx/e authors and Latinx/e literature is by doing the following:

REQUEST that your local library carry a copy

PURCHASE a copy of the book for a friend, family member, or your nemesis (hey! I’m sure they read too).

SHOUT about the book on any social media platform you might have or to your friends and family!

SHARE this interview widely! Word of mouth does wonders for connecting readers to books.

REVIEW their books on any website that sells books!

Happy Holiday season. I went on an unexpected hiatus from this space! I have traveled a lot since the end of September for bookish reasons, such as moderating author chats, workshops, and attending events. It’s been a whirlwind these past few weeks, but the thing most present in my mind was returning here.

Not only because I’ve got so many awesome author interviews to share with you but also because I’d love to talk about BOOKS! I haven’t read as much as I wanted to read this year but I’ve read some amazing books that deserve to be reviewed in a longer format outside of an Instagram caption. But, I want to know what have you read and loved? What are your favorite books of 2024? Share them with me in the comments below.

I’m excited about this author's interview because the featured book was a finalist for the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature! This interview was conducted way before the announcements about the National Book Award were made.

I was lucky enough to attend the National Book Awards afterparty in New York City this year. It was a beautiful evening full of meeting and seeing some of my favorite bookish people. I haven’t shared photos from the evening on Instagram because I kicked it back to the 90s and took photos with a disposable camera I am still in the process of getting developed lol. But I did manage a photo on the red carpet that I’m sharing below before we get into the interview :) I hope to hear from you in the comments — not just about your favorite books of 2024 but about anything! How you’ve been? Do you have any reading goals for 2025? What do you want to see from this space in 2025? Anything <3

In bookish love,

#NuevasPáginas is a space that aims to amplify and spotlight Hispanic/Latine/x authors with newly published books. The goal is to connect readers to their next favorite Hispanic/Latine/x authored book through a mini casual get-to-know-the-book-and-author interview. So please help me connect to more readers. So that together we can continue to build the love/support of Latine literature!

Without further ado…our special guest author for today’s Nuevas Pagina issue is… Josh Galarza author of The Great Cool Ranch Dorito In The Sky!

Could you tell me a bit about where this photo was taken? Is it special to your book in some way?

This photo was taken in front of the English building at the University of Nevada, Reno, where I wrote The Great Cool Ranch Dorito in the Sky while completing my degrees in English and art. I had such an incredible experience at UNR, working with brilliant mentors and friends in my writing workshops, and it was a lot of fun to revisit the campus for this photo shoot. You’ll note, however, that the book is set in Tucson, Arizona, where I lived just before moving to Reno for school. I was clearly feeling homesick for Tucson as I began drafting the story, and I often think of this book as a love letter to that part of the world.

Grab a copy of the book here!

Tell me about your book without telling me about your book - share any literary inspirations behind your book! If there are none, the gap you wanted to fill in the literary canon with your book

One of my main avenues of research is in men’s issues and masculine performance, and I quickly noted that most of the literature and media we see for boys, whether intentionally or not, perpetuates patriarchal mores. This makes sense, of course, because these stories exist in the greater context of the culture producing them; they’re a reflection of our culture’s values, including our worst.

The effect of this phenomenon is that while media for boys might prepare them for their place in patriarchal society, it rarely prepares them for the necessary, validating work of dismantling patriarchy in favor of a horizontal social structure. I want to see patriarchy and white supremacy fall to the wayside—the sooner, the better—so in my writing, I’m attempting something really tricky. I’m asking myself, Can I write to and for boys—can I write honestly about their flaws, blind spots, and fears of being emasculated (can I validate the challenges they face in navigating patriarchy)—while also undermining all of the societal values that pen boys into a version of gender performance that harms them as readily as it harms women and fem people? This endeavor is the greatest challenge of my entire artist’s practice, and it’s a true relief that audiences and critics seem to feel I’ve struck that balance well. In my books, you’re not going to find aspirational versions of boyhood. Instead, you’ll find very real, very messy boys struggling through patriarchy, boys who are lucky enough to discover new ways to express and validate their masculinity.

Because I was in treatment for disordered eating while writing this book, I also recognized how alone I felt as a man suffering from bulimia and orthorexia. Though plenty of men experience anxieties about their bodies and engage in various forms of disordered eating, we’re not socialized to talk about such hardships or to even recognize them when they take root. How many men have even heard the terms orthorexia or muscle dysmorphia, for example? Not surprisingly, nearly all the media and research that helped me in recovery was created by and for women. It’s incredibly important that men listen to the stories of women and strive to learn from them—doing so contributed greatly to my healing, not to mention that such work is necessary for men to become active feminists. But I couldn’t ignore the glaring void in media designed to speak directly to boys about these issues, media that might employ a boy’s own sensibilities. My goal, then, was to write a story that gives boys the tools and the permission to think differently about their bodies and the bodies of the girls and women in their lives. I never want to write perfect boys. But I do want to write boys are who are just a little better each day than they were the day before.

What are two central themes in your book that you connect with the most and why?

The first is that vulnerability is a superpower. Drawing on my own experiences to write this book was, at times, a terrifyingly vulnerable experience, but I had begun to recognize that it was my willingness to be vulnerable in treatment that allowed me to make quick progress in recovery. Owning, and especially speaking aloud, the painful or shameful truths of my past—opening up about my flaws, fears, and failings—was incredibly difficult, but each time I was brave enough to be honest, a little bit of my shame dissipated. Eating disorders thrive on shame, but shame can’t survive if we bring it into the light. In essence, every time I was vulnerable, I was suffocating the disordered voice in my mind. Vulnerability is essential to any healing work, so I wanted to write a book that models that behavior for a population of people who are systemically conditioned away from vulnerability.

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The second is that guilt and remorse are two different things, another essential aspect in healing work. I’m heavily influenced by Dr. Edith Eger, who teaches us that while guilt makes us feel stuck in shame—like we’re unworthy and therefore unable to change for the better—remorse acknowledges our capacity for change and growth. I’ve made so many terrible mistakes in my life, and by the time I finally sought treatment, my self-worth was decimated. But I was working hard on myself, and I was seeing myself change for the better, and I was believing in the idea that I could be better, that I didn’t have to be defined by my disease or the harm I caused while I was sick. I was building a value system and becoming a person I could be proud of. Today, I carry plenty of remorse, but remorse isn’t heavy. It’s merely a welcome reminder of who I’ve become and who I continue to strive to be. All that guilt that was weighing me down and fueling my self-destruction? I don’t carry an ounce of it.

If a book was home, where would your home be?

Most any bell hooks book. I simply adore her sharp and sound social criticism, and I deeply admire that she delivered it in ways that are accessible to broad audiences of readers because of a desire to speak directly to those regularly denied access to higher education. She was living her values right down to the nature of her prose, and I wish more theorists and critics loved humanity enough to follow her example. If the thematic content in my own book resonates, I highly recommend hooks’s The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity and Love. It’s a great aid for boys and men in their healing work under patriarchy and white supremacy.

If your book was a famous musician who would it be?

The musician who always gives me Dorito vibes is Jack Antonoff, specifically his Bleachers work. His music is deeply concerned with processing trauma and healing. “I Wanna Get Better” or “Don’t Take the Money” could be my book’s theme song. Now I’m really getting nerdy, but I even feel like the propulsive energy of many Bleachers songs is reflective of the nature of my prose, and the sense of community undergirding the whole concept of the band is right in line with themes I write to. Man, I listened to so much Bleachers while writing this book!

What comfort food could a reader pair with your book?

At the risk of stating the obvious, Doritos, of course!

In what ways has access (or little to no access) to Hispanic/Latinx/e literature defined you as a writer?

In Dorito, the protagonist, Brett, discovers the work of Chicano feminist Gloria Anzaldúa, which helps him understand himself as a mestizo even though he is not immersed in Mexican or Mexican American culture. This aspect of his story is inspired directly by my own experience. I’m mestizo, but I was raised primarily by the white side of my family, so it was an incredible revelation in college when I was first introduced to Anzaldúa’s work. Among many mind-blowing insights about the experience of being of indigenous and European descent, Anzaldúa writes about the racial amnesia many Chicano people feel because of the stresses, shame, and pressure of existing under white supremacy.

The concept really resonated with me because at that time in my life I was waking from my own racial amnesia—a sense of disconnection from the Mexican and indigenous side of my family and heritage—thanks to the constant onslaught of consciousness-raising literature I was engaging with at school. I was beginning to see all the ways white supremacy had successfully made me feel like I was less-than. I was seeing the lie, and I was grappling with the shame that I’d ever let anyone make me feel that way. I was also working hard to reject the ego so many men in these situations rely on to survive (Anzaldúa’s writing about machismo culture is incredibly illuminating!).

Don't forget to grab the book here!

While it was painful to grapple with these truths and realizations, I knew just how empowered I was becoming. I was unlikely to ever become deeply entrenched in Mexican American culture, but I could still choose to do the work of knowing and respecting myself more fully. I could study my history and my family. I could find ways in my art and my writing to honor the parts of myself that had become foreign to me after years of life experience I had no control over as a child. One of my goals with Brett was to illustrate the challenges many people in Latinx diaspora grapple with regarding identity. I wanted to show a version of being Latino that wasn’t rooted in the expertise that comes from lived experience but is every bit as valid. Much of my exploration in Chicano studies is to this end, and I’m currently finding it the most stimulating, moving, and satisfying branch of my creative research.

Where can readers keep up with your work?

Readers can check out my website at joshgalarza.com for news, events, and other updates, and I’m also quite active on Instagram @authorjoshgalarza. I do post updates on X (@JoshGalarza), Threads and Facebook, but readers are unlikely to find me interacting much on those platforms.

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Thank you to Josh Galarza for taking the time to chat with me about his book! Please please make sure you purchase a copy (or request your local library carry a copy) #SupportLatinxLit!

Longtime Montessori educator Josh Galarza writes fiction and creative nonfiction, and is a multidisciplinary visual artist specializing in printmaking and book arts. His research centers around male gender performance, queer issues, body liberation, and Chicano studies. His debut novel, The Great Cool Ranch Dorito in the Sky (Henry Holt & Company), is a finalist for the 2024 National Book Award for Young People's Literature.

Galarza earned his BA in English and BFA in art from the University of Nevada, Reno, where he later taught printmaking. He currently lives in Richmond, VA, where he teaches in the English Department at Virginia Commonwealth University while completing an MFA in creative writing.

Synopsis for The Great Cool Rnach Dorito in the Sky: Perfect for fans of Mark Oshiro and Adam Silvera comes a fiercely funny and hopeful story of one boy's attempts to keep everything under control while life has other plans.

Ever since cancer invaded his adoptive mother's life, Brett feels like he's losing everything, most of all control. To cope, Brett fuels all of his anxieties into epic fantasies, including his intergalactic Kid Condor comic book series, which features food constellations and characters not unlike those in his own life.

But lately Brett's grip on reality has started to lose its hold. The fictions he's been telling himself - about his unattractive body, the feeling that he's a burden to his best friend, that he's too messed up to be loved - have consumed him completely, and Brett will do anything to forget about the cosmic-sized hole in his chest, even if it's unhealthy.

But when Brett's journal and deepest insecurities are posted online for the whole school to see, Brett realizes he can no longer avoid the painful truths of his real-life narrative. As his eating disorder escalates, Brett must be honest with the people closest to him, including his new and fierce friend Mallory who seems to know more about Brett's issues than he does. With their support, he just might find the courage to face the toughest reality of all.

The best way you can support Latinx/e authors and Latinx/e literature is by doing the following:

REQUEST that your local library carry a copy

PURCHASE a copy of the book for a friend, family member, or your nemesis (hey! I’m sure they read too).

SHOUT about the book on any social media platform you might have or to your friends and family!

SHARE this interview widely! Word of mouth does wonders for connecting readers to books.

REVIEW their books on any website that sells books!

You would think with Hispanic Heritage Month upon us that I would be in your inbox with author interviews every day. But around here, since we amplify and spotlight Latino/e/x and or Hispanic authors all year long — I gave myself a bit of a break to start a video-based challenge instead (because clearly I don’t understand the meaning of a ‘break’ 😫). On TikTok and Instagram I am posting a video every single day during Hispanic Heritage Month recommending a Latine book I’ve read before that I feel like you need to read too. I’m on day 12 and it has been so much fun.

Still, I couldn’t let the month pass without popping up here with an author spotlight/interview and to share with you that tomorrow, Saturday S,eptember 28th at 3 PM in the Adult Learning section (2nd floor) of the Martin Luther King Jr Memorial Library, La Comunidad Reads will get to welcome Vanessa Angélica Villarreal, author of Magical/Realism: Essays on Music, Memory, Fantasy, and Borders, and Deborah Paredez, author of American Diva —who both explore the impact of culture through their books!

This in-person event is free and open to the public and thanks for the DC Public Library Foundation — there will be free copies of both books for folks that attend. It’s first come first serve so make sure to get there a little early. And registered is not required but it is encouraged I hope to see you tomorrow for what will be the final La Comunidad Reads event for 2024! And for folks who want to join us but can’t in person —this discussion will be available virtually via DCPL’s YouTube Channel.

In bookish love,

P.S. Before jump into our interview for today, the publisher for today’s special author feature sent me two free copies of the book to giveaway to two lucky winners here :) If you want to win a FREE copy of the book featured in today’s interview all you have to do is the following: comment that you are interested and would like to be entered below (one comment/entry per person). 

It’s that simple :) however if you want to increase your chances of winning a copy - share this interview by either forwarding the email to a friend or on social media (Instagram, Facebook, TikTok - basically wherever you social media!) Once you’ve done that add a second comment below to let me know you’ve shared the interview as well. Good luck and happy reading <3

#NuevasPáginas is a space that aims to amplify and spotlight Hispanic/Latine/x authors with newly published books. The goal is to connect readers to their next favorite Hispanic/Latine/x authored book through a mini casual get-to-know-the-book-and-author interview. So please help me connect to more readers. So that together we can continue to build the love/support of Latine literature!

Our special guest author for today’s issue is…Tomas Moniz author of All Friends Are Necessary!

Could you tell me a bit about where this photo was taken? Is it special to your book in some way?

The very first scene I wrote was in Benders’s, this beautiful, grimey metal bar on South Van Ness in the Mission, and from there the ,characters move through the Bay Area, the cities and neighborhoods, the parks and corner stores. Right after the book was published, Bad Bunny showed up one night to play pool…maybe he read it! Anyway, I wanted to ground the setting in as much local specificity as I could, especially since recently there’s been such a negative narrative about The City and its “doom loop.” In fact, I call the book a love letter to the Bay. If you’re from here, you’ll appreciate it all. And if you aren’t familiar with the area, you’ll come to love it. 

Grab a copy of the book here!

Tell me about your book without telling me about your book - share any literary inspirations behind your book! If there are none, the gap you wanted to fill in the literary canon with your book

Think biking at sunset with your homies through city streets. Think laying in the grass with a group of friends telling jokes or reassuring each other that things will be okay. Think little kids hitting piñatas and Mission burritos and  skinny-dipping on the summer solstice. While writing this book, especially because it’s set in San Francisco's Mission District, I considered other Chicanx writers who also wrote about that area like The Autobiography of a Brown Buffalo or The Mixquiahuala Letters by Ana Castillo. As the setting shifts to Oakland, I considered Tommy Orange’s There There. But the one book I had on my desk: Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon.

What are two central themes in your book that you connect with the most and why?

Joy and grief! In fact, I playfully described the book as a joyful novel about grief. I started writing it at the beginning of Trump‘s administration desperately looking for a way to move forward, to remain in community with others rather than retreating away to avoid everything. I wanted a creative project that reminded me that joy and pleasure and kindness are key factors in survival, in healing.

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If a book was home, where would your home be?

Literally speaking, my book would be a home in the vibrant neighborhoods of East Oakland with its fruit vendors on various street corners, paleta carts ringing their bells as they stroll sidewalks, cars driving a bit too fast, people shouting their hellos across streets; metaphorically, the book is like the house next door to you, a place you can stop by anytime for some coffee and chisme.

If your book was a famous musician who would it be?

In many ways the book is an ode to music from early new wave to 80’s metal to 90’s alt-rock. There’s a Korn concert and a sweaty pit; a Hole concert at the Fillmore brings the two main characters together. Here’s a playlist and essay I created for a Largehearted Boy and I had such a good time writing it.

What comfort food could a reader pair with your book?

One of my favorite scenes in the book is this slightly racy scene involving spaghetti with lots of marinara sauce and a glass of red wine, but a cheesy quesadilla and a Tecate with lime and Tajin by any body of water would suffice.

Don't forget to grab a copy of the book!

In what ways has access (or little to no access) to Hispanic/Latinx/e literature defined you as a writer?

This is such a fraught question for me. So I read almost no Latinx Lit until I enrolled in a  feminist studies class my freshman year of college and discovered Gloria Anzaldúa specifically, as well as the book This Bridge Called My Back. As a mixed race child growing up in Hawaii, Anzaldúa’s advocacy for self-acceptance, for embracing all the parts of her identity, all her “voices,” even the contradictory ones, changed my life. However, when I eagerly began to take Chicano Studies classes, I encountered a different kind of attitude that espoused a more rigid, static sense of identity, as if being Latine meant one thing only (one of the reasons I use all the terms: Chicano/Latinx/e). Eventually, I discovered through the help of friends and fellow artists, writers like Michael Nava, Ron Arias, Erica Lopez, thinkers like José Esteban Muñoz, artists like Félix González-Torres and Yoland Lopez.

Where can readers keep up with your work?

I’ve scaled back my presence on social media since the book launch but I’m still active on Instagram: tomas_should_be_writing; however, my favorite form of correspondence is writing letters. PO Box 3555, Berkeley California, 94703. Write me, I promise I’ll write back.

Thank you to Tomas Moniz for taking the time to chat with me about his book! Please please make sure you purchase a copy (or request your local library carry a copy) #SupportLatinxLit!

Tomas Moniz is a Latinx writer living in Oakland, CA. His debut novel, Big Familia, was a finalist for the 2020 PEN/Hemingway, the LAMBDA, and the Foreward Indies Awards. He edited the popular Rad Dad and Rad Families anthologies. He is the recipient of the prestigious SF Literary Arts Foundation's 2016 Award and the 2020 Artist Affiliate for Headlands Center for Arts. He currently teaches at Berkeley City College and the Antioch MFA program.

Synopsis for All Friends Are Necessary:

In this "tender and open-hearted novel," (Nina LaCour, author of Yerba Buena) Tomas Moniz--a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway and Lambda Literary awards--delivers a commanding new story about the power of friendship, community, and the families we create for ourselves.

Efren "Chino" Flores has just moved back to the Bay Area from Seattle, jumping from sublet to sublet. In Washington, he was an adored middle school biology teacher with a loving wife, and a child on the way--that is, until a stunning loss upended his life. Now he's working temp jobs, terrified of commitment, and struggling to put himself back out into the world.

But there to nurture Chino is a coterie of new and old friends and lovers who form a protective web around him. Closest to him are Metal Matt, a red-haired metalhead with a soft spot for Courtney Love and a rangy dog named Sabbath, and Mike and Kay, a couple whose literary edge is matched only by the success of their secret OnlyFans account. As Chino begins to date more men and women--and to open himself up again to love--his bonds with those around him grow both rich and profound. Like a fern blooming in the wake of a forest fire, new life comes after even the most devastating upheaval.

With gorgeous, heartrending detail and a seemingly infinite catalogue of tender, unexpected interactions, Tomas Moniz has created a striking mosaic of desire and belonging. An anthem to both queer and platonic love, All Friends Are Necessary evinces the wonder of friendship and the joy of giving yourself up to the essential force of community.

The best way you can support Latinx/e authors and Latinx/e literature is by doing the following:

REQUEST that your local library carry a copy

PURCHASE a copy of the book for a friend, family member, or your nemesis (hey! I’m sure they read too).

SHOUT about the book on any social media platform you might have or to your friends and family!

SHARE this interview widely! Word of mouth does wonders for connecting readers to books.

REVIEW their books on any website that sells books!

Hey Book Franz,

Apparently it’s National Latina Day! Which feels like a perfect time to remind you to explore the #NuevasPáginas archive for interviews with some powerhouse Latina authors that you might have missed in addition to today’s special guest! To celebrate, I asked BookThreads to shout out their favorite bookish Latina and I’d love to bring that energy here too — if you want to shout about a fellow Latina reader/author that you love, please feel free to do that in the comments.

But how are you doing? Are you gearing up for the fall/school season to begin? Are you reading? If so what are you reading? I’d love to check in and see how you are doing! Click on the link below and let’s catch up.

I personally have been hoovering between being busy, trying to enjoy the summer, trying not to get all emotional about my kid starting elementary school (I am currently failing at this) and worried/worked up with so much more. Reading hasn’t necessarily been the priority. It’s been hard to get sucked into a book lately though when it does happen for me, it’s felt like a miracle sent from the sky. I’ve been meaning to write a special review for a book that really sucked me in. Hoping to do that soon!

In terms of book events, I am [trying] to gear up for a busy September! I literally have an event every week in September. Why do I do this to myself, you might ask. Because I love books, I love talking to people that write books and that is my weakness. I have a hard time saying “No” when the opportunity to chat with an author comes up. Especially the authors I’ll be chatting with in September. I’ll do a whole issue on the events I have coming up in September, but for now, I wanted to share that I’ll get to speak with the first Latina Poet Laureate — Ada Limón! Wednesday, September 4th at 6:30 PM at the MLK Library auditorium!!!!!

Ada Limón will share a reading from her acclaimed works and we’ll be chatting about her ongoing exploration of our personal and societal ties to the natural world. I am so deeply excited and hoping not to fangirl too much. I just went over to the registration page to share the link with you all here, for anyone that might want to join us but apparently the event is FULL already!!! OMG, hello anxiety — yes I hear you in there. You can though still join the waitlist: Register here!

It’s been lovely catching up a bit and I hope to be back next week with another interview or even a review, but if not, I am wishing all the parents, caregivers and teachers a wonderful first week back to school. Teachers/caregivers — thank you for everything you do, it is not recognized enough but I hope you interact with parents that do acknowledge it. Parents — thank the teachers!

Wishing you happy reading,

#NuevasPáginas is a space that aims to amplify and spotlight Hispanic/Latine/x authors with newly published books. The goal is to connect readers to their next favorite Hispanic/Latine/x authored book through a mini casual get-to-know-the-book-and-author interview. So please help me connect to more readers. So that together we can continue to build the love/support of Latine literature!

Without further ado…our special guest author for today’s Nuevas Pagina issue is…Sofia Robleda author of Daughter of Fire!

Could you tell me a bit about where this photo was taken? Is it special to your book in some way?

This is my living/dining room where I write, in my home in London. I’m leaning on the stand-up writing desk my husband built for me, and which I used to write the majority of my book, so it’s pretty special.

Grab a copy of the book here!

Tell me about your book without telling me about your book - share any literary inspirations behind your book! If there are none, the gap you wanted to fill in the literary canon with your book

I LOVE retellings of ancient myths from a female perspective, think Circe, The Women of Troy. And I also LOVE novels set in royal courts… think The Other Boleyn Girl, Wolf Hall… but as far as I know, no one has really done a retelling of the Popol Vuh. Silvia Moreno Garcia touched on the Maya myths in her fabulous novel Gods of Jade and Shadow, which was a huge source of inspiration for me. And even though my original intention wasn’t to ‘fill a gap,’ but connect with my lost ancestry in some way, I do hope that I’ve somewhat expanded the retelling genre towards our own beautiful, prehispanic myths.

And now, I absolutely intend to fill more of the gaps I see. I love novels set in the 16th century, but they’re largely Eurocentric. We are oversaturated with the Tudors, or at least I am. But I want there to be stories about our royal courts and families… I have also tried to offer a glimpse into that 16th century world in Daughter of Fire, but I am working on more - I basically want to be the Mexican Philippa Gregory!

What are two central themes in your book that you connect with the most and why?

Catalina's search for belonging, and the struggle to reconcile the (sometimes painful) duality inside her is one that I connect to quite strongly. I grew up in Mexico but at the age of 10 there was a huge financial crisis in the country and my father (who was an airline pilot) moved us to Saudi Arabia for a better job. It was a massive culture shock. I didn’t speak English well, but I learnt it very quickly at the American school I attended. From then on, I was sort of split. I never felt completely Mexican ever again, but I also never felt Saudi, or Singaporean (where we moved to next), or Australian (where I went to for university). It was only at the age of 18 when our international school explained to our graduating class that we were ’Third Culture Kids’, that I understood more about this confused feeling inside me, of not fully fitting in anywhere, except maybe with other TCK’s like myself.

The other central theme that I also connect to is making your own choices and finding your own path in a patriarchal world. While I have been privileged to have a father (unlike Catalina) who has largely been supportive of me, I was still raised in two incredibly sexist countries, Mexico and Saudi Arabia (in the 90’s no less). Saudi especially left a deep mark inside me. I will say in fairness, that I loved the years we spent there and the many friendships I made with so many people from around the world, including Saudis, but it was a very difficult place for a young girl. It was difficult to be looked at and treated as a lesser being because I was a girl. I knew and I felt how wrong and unfair that was, and I spent many years feeling very angry about it. Catalina breaking out of the molds and restrictions placed upon her by the men around her (both K’iche’ Maya and Spanish), is a struggle I think that I, and many Latines are familiar with.

If a book was home, where would your home be?

*Quickly searches for books written in idyllic island or warm seaside locations where nothing bad happens*

Google: No exact matches found.

This is a very difficult question, probably because of what I’ve explained before and how I’ve grown up in different places - for a long time I haven’t been sure what “home" really feels like. But if there’s a book that gives me a feeling of comfort (having read it many times). I would say Pride and Prejudice. Obviously everyone in that novel is hyper privileged, but hey - a girl can dream about having endless help with cleaning, laundry, and childcare (I won’t mention cooking because my husband takes care of that thank goodness).

But anyway, I do love living in England. It’s an interesting place in many ways, but also in terms of converging a lot of my different ‘lives’. I’ve got childhood friends here from Saudi, high school friends from Singapore, university friends from Australia, and even a cousin from Mexico! People also visit all the time, which is something I never really experienced growing up either. But I don’t see myself living here forever. One day, I would love to go back and live in Mexico. Even though it’s been more than 20 years, it will always have the most special place in my heart, and I miss it.

If your book was a famous musician who would it be?

Ok so I was thinking probably a woman who is a fiery rock star but also incredibly compassionate, and I thought of Dolores O’Riordan from the Cranberries… I went to look her up and just found out she died in 2018 and now I’m crying. WHY ARE ALL THE BEST SINGERS DEAD! Anyway, I’m not really sure if I can pin it down to one singer, but I did curate a whole playlist for the book, which I’d love to share with you all:

What comfort food could a reader pair with your book?

Oh, now we’re talking! I cannot tell you how many tortillas were sacrificed in the pursuit of this book. Thousands. I just warm them up and eat them rolled up, plain. But of course you’re welcome to add cheese and make it a quesadilla, with Valentina or San Luis sauce, YUM.

Don't forget to grab a copy of the book!

In what ways has access (or little to no access) to Hispanic/Latinx/e literature defined you as a writer?

The only two Latinx books that I clearly remember reading as a teen were House of Spirits and Like Water for Chocolate. I read them both in English and in Spanish, and they’ve been seared into my brain. If I close my eyes I can flick through and picture some of the scenes in both books so clearly, they’re almost like a movie - and I’ve never watched either of the remakes! But yeah they had a huge impact on me, in helping me see our society more clearly, and giving a voice to that angry Mexican girl inside me.

I’ll also never be able to write without some kind of magic occurring in my books, and I thank Isabel Allende & Laura Esquivel for inspiring me to explore those magical elements which are such a key part of our culture. I do wish I’d had some more young adult novels to read growing up, or even Latinx picture books as a child. I envy kids nowadays who thankfully have a lot more choice, but of course there’s still a long way to go!

Where can readers keep up with your work?

If you’d like exclusive news and goodies, I have a newsletter called The Sporadic Herald that I send irregular updates on, which you can sign up to on my website: https://sofiarobleda.com/ I promise, I don’t spam!

I also am active on Instagram and Threads and sometimes TikTok: @sofiarobleda

I do hope you all love Catalina’s story! Thank you from the bottom of my heart!

Thank you to Sofia Robleda for taking the time to chat with me abouther book! Please please make sure you purchase a copy (or request your local library carry a copy) #SupportLatinxLit!

Sofia Robleda is a Mexican author. She spent her childhood and adolescence in Mexico, Saudi Arabia and Singapore. She completed her undergraduate and doctorate degrees in psychology at the University of Queensland, in Australia. She currently lives in the UK with her husband and son, and splits her time writing, raising her son, and working as a psychologist, supporting people with brain injuries and neurological conditions.

Synopsis for Daughter of Fire: For a young woman coming of age in sixteenth-century Guatemala, safeguarding her people's legacy is a dangerous pursuit in a mystical, empowering, and richly imagined historical novel.

Catalina de Cerrato is being raised by her widowed father, Don Alonso, in 1551 Guatemala, scarcely thirty years since the Spanish invasion. A ruling member of the oppressive Spanish hierarchy, Don Alonso holds sway over the newly relegated lower class of Indigenous communities. Fiercely independent, Catalina struggles to honor her father and her late mother, a Maya noblewoman to whom Catalina made a vow that only she can keep: preserve the lost sacred text of the Popol Vuh, the treasured and now forbidden history of the K'iche' people.

Urged on by her mother's spirit voice, and possessing the gift of committing the invaluable stories to memory, Catalina embarks on a secret and transcendent quest to rewrite them. Through ancient pyramids, Spanish villas, and caves of masked devils, she finds an ally in the captivating Juan de Rojas, a lord whose rule was compromised by the invasion. But as their love and trust unfold, and Don Alonso's tyranny escalates, Catalina must confront her conflicted blood heritage--and its secrets--once and for all if she's to follow her dangerous quest to its historic end.

The best way you can support Latinx/e authors and Latinx/e literature is by doing the following:

REQUEST that your local library carry a copy

PURCHASE a copy of the book for a friend, family member, or your nemesis (hey! I’m sure they read too).

SHOUT about the book on any social media platform you might have or to your friends and family!

SHARE this interview widely! Word of mouth does wonders for connecting readers to books.

REVIEW their books on any website that sells books!

#NuevasPáginas is a space that aims to amplify and spotlight Hispanic/Latine/x authors with newly published books. The goal is to connect readers to their next favorite Hispanic/Latine/x authored book through a mini casual get-to-know-the-book-and-author interview. So please help me connect to more readers. So that together we can continue to build the love/support of Latine literature!

Hey, Book loves!

I am back in your inbox today as promised with a brand new author interview. I always get excited when I get to share author interviews with you because there’s this promise for me that I might connect someone to their next favorite book or author. Perhaps that’s a far stretch given a reader’s #ToBeRead pile but I like to dream like that.

Today’s interview comes from a special connection. I got to meet the author featured in the newsletter today virtually when I got to speak to a poetry cohort about all things social media. It feels special that getting to chat with the cohort has led to connecting you all with this author’s debut poetry collection. For those wondering how interviews with authors come to happen for this newsletter, it is a bit of this a bit of that — a bit of chance, connecting via opportunities like the one I described, and a little bit of that — having publishers reach out to me with Latine authored books that I might want to spotlight. The thing about having publishers reach out to me is that I’m relying on publishers to know who I am and what I do. More often than not I’ve been told by authors that publishers don’t know me or about this newsletter, which is okay. But for me that gives me a bigger reason to continue pursuing these interviews when I can in my own spare time. Not so that publishers will know who I am but so that readers know they have a space where they can come find out about new Latine books without feeling like they don’t know where to start. So if today’s interview resonates with you or one from the past, I hope you’ll consider sharing it!

In order book news — in case you missed it, Angie Cruz will be joining La Comunidad Reads for a special story time event. I wrote about it below and today is Angélica and la Güira book birthday! The picture book is available in English and Spanish and you should be able to buy it from any bookstore. I’m really excited about it for many reasons but the biggest reason is how delightful and powerful the book is. I’m so glad I get to read it to my kid and talk to him about the power of music and how it can connect us to our loved ones. Grab a copy for the littles in your life!

sent with bookish love,

Lupita

Without further ado…our special guest author for today’s Nuevas Pagina issue is…Brent Ameneyro author of A Face Out of Clay!

Could you tell me a bit about where this photo was taken? Is it special to your book in some way?

This photo was taken by my brother, Kent Ameneyro, at La Caza Azul, the Frida Kahlo Museum in Mexico City. In many ways, that day with my brother in the garden at Frida’s house is representative of the creative energy that went into my book, energy shaped by connecting with nature, family, culture, and community. My family lived in Mexico for a couple of years during my childhood, which is at the heart of my book. Frida and Diego Rivera make appearances in the collection as well.

Grab a copy of the book here!

Tell me about your book without telling me about your book - share any literary inspirations behind your book! If there are none, the gap you wanted to fill in the literary canon with your book

My writing style is not easily contained in a singular approach to the craft, although I think you can clearly identify the puzzle pieces that built the platform I stand on. I am influenced by many different styles: surrealists like Federico García Lorca; imagists like William Carlos Williams; nature poets like W.S. Merwin; stream-of-consciousness narrative writers like Virginia Woolf. I would also like to give a shoutout to living writers I admire, poets like John Murillo, Raina J León, Anthony Cody, and Rigoberto González, to name a few.

What are two central themes in your book that you connect with the most and why?

I see movement as a larger theme that contains many subcategories: moving (physically) from one country to another, moving (intellectually and emotionally) from childhood to adulthood, etc. I obsessed over this idea of “movement” for quite a while. I’ve always craved a sense of belonging, mostly in relation to place. I like the idea of a “hometown,” of a place that I can return to. I had one childhood in California and one in Puebla, and I never felt compelled to call a geographic location home. I think the movement theme arose out of an exploration of this desire to define home within the parameters of place. It ultimately became a way to reconcile with the fact that I am always in flux, that the only constant is change, and that home, to me, is a metaphor for peace.

Spending time in nature is another way that I learned about inner peace. A volcano erupting near the city I lived in, for example, taught me that the earth is part of this conversation. That volcano taught me as a child that there are things that are out of our control. I think you can feel this as you read my book. In a way, you have to relinquish yourself to the experience. As soon as you start to feel comfortable, the book has a volcanic eruption, so to speak.

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If a book was home, where would your home be?

Oh wow, I should have read ahead before answering the last question!

If your book was a famous musician who would it be?

Charles Mingus because a cool rhythm might seduce you only to be interrupted by bursts of controlled chaos.

What comfort food could a reader pair with your book?

Tamales, although there is a lot of food imagery to choose from in my book. My grandma Mayté brought the whole family together around the dinner table. I remember spending all day at her house and never once leaving the table.

Don't forget to grab a copy here!

In what ways has access (or little to no access) to Hispanic/Latinx/e literature defined you as a writer?

I wasn’t exposed to many Latin American writers growing up. If I didn’t intentionally seek out certain voices on my own, I would have never read some of my biggest influences. We should be teaching contemporary poets to children. We should be showing them what’s exciting and fresh. We should be getting them interested. We should be introducing children to Hispanic writers, Black writers, Arab writers, Asian writers, Indigenous writers, Queer writers, Disabled writers, living writers working today who are discussing ideas that are relevant to their lives. Children need role models! My experience of not hearing those voices at a young age definitely motivated me to publish my book and contribute to the larger literary conversation.

Where can readers keep up with your work?

As long as you can spell my last name, I’m pretty easy to find. My website is www.BrentAmeneyro.com and I’m currently on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook @BrentAmeneyro 

Thank you to Brent Ameneyro for taking the time to chat with me about his book! Please please make sure you purchase a copy (or request your local library carry a copy) #SupportLatineLit!

Brent Ameneyro is the author of the collection A Face Out of Clay (The Center for Literary Publishing, 2024) and the chapbook Puebla (Ghost City Press, 2023). His poetry has been published in Alaska Quarterly Review, The Iowa Review, Ninth Letter, The Journal, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Salamander, and elsewhere. He was the 2022-2023 Letras Latinas Poetry Coalition Fellow at the University of Notre Dame's Institute for Latino Studies. He currently serves as an associate at Letras Latinas and as the poetry editor for The Los Angeles Review.

Synopsis for A Face Out of Clay:

Written at the convergence of imagination and memory, A Face Out of Clay delves deep into childhood experiences and cultural identity. Through eloquent verses and poignant imagery, alternating between narrative and lyric poems, the book paints a complicated portrait of a bi-national speaker. The poems navigate the interplay between Mexican roots and the American experience, seeking to reconcile both cultural identities. They present themes of social justice, family bonds, and the power of cultural traditions, highlighting both difficult truths and everyday beauty. The poems transport readers back in time, reliving childhood innocence, natural disasters, and political oppressors. They serve as a reminder of the power of nostalgia along with the challenges that come with recreating memories. A Face Out of Clay is a profound exploration of the human experience, inviting readers to reflect, celebrate, and connect with the transformative power of poetry.

The best way you can support Latinx/e authors and Latinx/e literature is by doing the following:

REQUEST that your local library carry a copy

PURCHASE a copy of the book for a friend, family member, or your nemesis (hey! I’m sure they read too).

SHOUT about the book on any social media platform you might have or to your friends and family!

SHARE this interview widely! Word of mouth does wonders for connecting readers to books.

REVIEW their books on any website that sells books!

#NuevasPáginas is a space that aims to amplify and spotlight Hispanic/Latine/x authors with newly published books. The goal is to connect readers to their next favorite Hispanic/Latine/x authored book through a mini casual get-to-know-the-book-and-author interview. So please help me connect to more readers. So that together we can continue to build the love/support of Latine literature!

Hey Book Franz!

Happy Summer :) I hope your summer is off to a great start but if it’s not and you are feeling strange or not quite like yourself — I totally and deeply understand. I’ve written about how typically around this time towards July and the beginning of August I start to get clouds that come over me that carry showers of sadness, shame, and doom. There are tons of reasons why I think this happens to me during the summer (aka The Body Keeps The Score) and reasons I might not be aware of but I know that every year having the awareness that I might catch myself feeling off, has helped tremendously. Being open about it and sharing my feelings has helped as well. It can be hard with it being summer and this expectation that sunshine should bring on happy thoughts and all things relaxation. The truth is we can’t control how we feel, sunshine or rain. But we can be a little less hard on our feelings and try to embrace them (can you tell I watched Inside Out 2? If you haven’t, go see it!!). So however summer has found you, I wish you acceptance because that’s what I’m trying to do and I wish you happy reading!

What’s Lupita reading this week?

My reading is all over the place. I’ve made excuses that for the most part feel valid, that my brain isn’t able to focus on books and reading right now but the other part of that is I think I’m looking for ways to disassociate which makes turning to scrolling on social media so much easier. The thing for me about disassociating is that it doesn’t replenish me. Instead, I’m left feeling like I need more alone time to scroll. Acknowledging that, this past weekend I told myself and my family I wanted to spend more time reading and I was caught off guard completely when my five-year-old stopped playing to come over and whisper to me: Shouldn’t you be reading? Put your phone down.

Yikes! I laughed a lot about it and then I realized that when I do set my phone down and spend more time reading, I feel a lot more capable of showing up. Long-winded way of trying to tell you all that I am reading about five books at the same time and I am now motivated to focus and finish them. One of the books I’m almost done reading is CRAFT STORIES I WROTE FOR THE DEVIL by Ananda Lima. I have the opportunity to chat with Ananda for her DC book tour stop and wow is this short story collection so incredibly unique— the title exactly describes this strange and profound collection which to me asks the question of how we define evil and how do we work against the types of stories we are expected to tell as BIPOC folk. If you are in the DC/MD/VA area, please join us if you can :) If you aren’t local, hang tight because I’m hoping to feature Lima right here in the future.

Sent with bookish love,

Lupita <3

Without further ado…our special guest author for today’s Nuevas Pagina issue is…Jennifer Silva Redmond author of Honeymoon at Sea!

Could you tell me a bit about where this photo was taken? Is it special to your book in some way?

This photo was taken in my favorite writing spot on our sailboat, our home since 2005; This is where my memoir begins and ends; though this is not the first boat we sailed on (that was a much smaller boat), I can’t imagine us ever wanting a different boat, so I think it will be the last boat we ever have!

Grab a copy of the book here!

Tell me about your book without telling me about your book - share any literary inspirations behind your book! If there are none, the gap you wanted to fill in the literary canon with your book

Two different memoirs were highly influential—Wild, by Cheryl Strayed, and Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer. I wanted my memoir to be as active and honest and funny as Wild, and to bring the everyday wonder of the natural world into the writing as beautifully as Kimmerer does in Sweetgrass.

Then, while I was editing the book in 2022, I got Ann Patchett’s These Precious Days, and that had a significant impact on my rewriting—trying to keep the themes present and still invisible, and to leaven it all with humor where I could.

What are two central themes in your book that you connect with the most and why?

One big theme I love to read and write about is a woman finding her place in the world, finding her voice and her calling. So much of this voyage I was on was spent with me saying to myself “What do I want to be when I grow up?” So many of us grow up and go straight to work, as I did, which can be limiting; I had big dreams, but I didn’t have a pathway to realizing those dreams. Luckily, I got new big dreams—and have been realizing them for years.

The other is discovering my roots—my Mexican-ness, if that is a word. I really knew nothing about Mexico before my sailor-artist husband and I set off on the boat for Cabo; I was a Mexican-American who had lived on the border most of my life and never been south of Ensenada. And I fell in love with everything about Mexico, especially the people, of course. (Early on, my memoir’s working title was “Becoming Mexican in Baja California.”)

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If a book was home, where would your home be?

Right here on my sailboat; I feel like my book was built like a boat, from the keel up, with lots of different parts and helpers, and, like a boat, it has been launched and is off to sea, and I’m hoping it will find its way in the big world of books.

If your book was a famous musician who would it be?

Joan Baez. Because she is associated with the time when I first imprinted on the world—the 1960s—and also because she reminds me of my mom, who I lost in 2019—she embodies our two Mexican and American cultures so seamlessly and gracefully. And because Joan Baez is still so kick-ass and opinionated and still out there being an activist for the natural world.

What comfort food could a reader pair with your book?

Chilaquilas! Or enchiladas, or tamales, or a simple quesadilla. All of those are comfort foods for me, and I wrote so much in the book about eating Mexican food (specifically chilaquiles) and about us stretching our food budget by eating the fresh fish we caught along with rice and beans and local dishes throughout Baja and also mainland Mexico.

Don't forget to grab a copy here!

In what ways has access (or little to no access) to Hispanic/Latinx/e literature defined you as a writer?

I had absolutely no access to books written by Hispanic/Latinx writers as a kid. There were just so few out there, at least that I was aware of. But my mom was a writer, she wrote poetry and journaled daily most of my life, so that was hugely influential. Then, at about 20, I read One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez and it blew my mind. Then I read The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende, and I thought, this is different, and this is great. There have been so many great Latinx books and authors since then, I couldn’t begin to list them!

Where can readers keep up with your work?

The best way to follow my adventures right now is by reading and subscribing to my new free Substack , about traveling and book marketing and life!

I am also on social media here:

https://www.facebook.com/jsilvaredmond

https://www.instagram.com/jsilvaredmond/

https://www.tiktok.com/@jsilvaredmond

https://twitter.com/jsilvaredmond

Thank you to Jennifer Silva Redmond for taking the time to chat with me about her book! Please please make sure you purchase a copy (or request your local library carry a copy) #SupportLatinxLit!

Jennifer Silva Redmond is a writer and freelance editor from California. Her essays, articles, and fiction have been published in numerous anthologies and magazines, and on sites such as Brevity. She is on the staff of the Southern California Writers Conference and San Diego Writers, Ink, and was the prose editor for A Year in Ink, vol 3, and co-founder of the critically acclaimed Sea of Cortez Review. She lives with her husband Russel, an artist and teacher, aboard their current sailboat Watchfire, somewhere on the West Coast of North America. Formerly editor-in-chief of Sunbelt Publications, Jennifer is now their editor-at-large. She is currently writing a book about editing; her book reviews and blog posts about writing, editing, and the sailing life can be found at www.jennyredbug.com.

Synopsis for Honeymoon at Sea:

In this charming, meditative memoir, Jennifer recounts that fateful first year, moving back and forth with the currents of her life. On their voyage, the couple sailed Watchfire to Baja California's Sea of Cortez, where they spent twelve months before sailing south along Mexico and Central America and through the Panama Canal. Jennifer's unique experience on the boat weaves through time as she explores the events that lead to taking her first step onto Watchfire--from her bohemian 1960s childhood in Southern California to the years she spent as a struggling actor in New York.

As Jennifer's grandfather once said, "If you want to get to know someone, take a long trip in a small boat."

The memoir begins and ends with the couple on their current sailboat in San Diego and then in Port Townsend, Washington. More than thirty years later, their honeymoon at sea continues.

The best way you can support Latinx/e authors and Latinx/e literature is by doing the following:

REQUEST that your local library carry a copy

PURCHASE a copy of the book for a friend, family member, or your nemesis (hey! I’m sure they read too).

SHOUT about the book on any social media platform you might have or to your friends and family!

SHARE this interview widely! Word of mouth does wonders for connecting readers to books.

REVIEW their books on any website that sells books!

#NuevasPáginas is a space that aims to amplify and spotlight Hispanic/Latine/x authors with newly published books. The goal is to connect readers to their next favorite Hispanic/Latine/x authored book through a mini casual get-to-know-the-book-and-author interview. So please help me connect to more readers. So that together we can continue to build the love/support of Latine literature!

Hey Book Franz!

AH! I am going to keep today’s intro short because if you read the heading of this issue, you know we are BUSY! For the first time in the history of Nuevas Páginas, we are featuring TWO special guest authors, both with children’s books that seem incredibly adorable.

I won’t say much else to keep you, except that I’d love to chat with you:

Also, for those participating in #ReadLatineLit, I am hosting a special giveaway on Instagram. One lucky winner will get a $100 gift card to a Latine-owned bookstore <3

Subscribe now

Without further ado…our first special guest author for today’s Nuevas Páginas issue is…Nadine Fonseca author of Only a Trenza Away!

Could you tell me a bit about where this photo was taken? Is it special to your book in some way?

This is my very glamorous "writing office", a.k.a. my living room couch. On the surface it is not very special, just convenient as a work-at-home mom of four. However, I do find inspiration in the art and bold colors I've curated for this room and love that where I wrote this book and where we read the book together as a family are one and the same. 

Tell me about your book without telling me about your book - share any literary inspirations behind your book! If there are none, the gap you wanted to fill in the literary canon with your book

I loved the opportunity to show a softer, more tender side of Latino fathers to counter the machismo caricature we often see in media portrayals. The delicate blend of culture and important messaging in Joanna Ho's Eyes that Kiss in the Corners, was most certainly an inspiration for how I hope readers would feel when they experienced Trenza.

Grab a copy of the book here!

What are two central themes in your book that you connect with the most and why?

(1) The notion that loving yourself as you are currently (flaws, insecurities, and all) and loving the version of yourself you aspire to be can and should co-exist. (2) We are all connected, and therefore, never truly alone.

If a book was home, where would your home be?

The Book With No Pictures, ha! I dream of a minimalist home akin to those black and white pages, but can't help but have an eclectic, maximalist style in reality- rainbows abound! But really, a home filled with silliness, laughter, and imagination. 

If your book was a famous musician who would it be?

Lin-Manuel Miranda: always honoring and normalizing coltura, bringing fun and whimsy to life for kids and adults alike, and tugging on those heart strings.

What comfort food could a reader pair with your book?

A warm cup of hot chocolate or tea before a bedtime adventure. Right now, I'm loving me some pumpkin spice chai with a slash of almond milk.

In what ways has access (or little to no access) to Hispanic/Latinx/e literature defined you as a writer?

Interestingly enough, I never aspired to be a writer professionally. My work in DEI consulting led me to this opportunity, for which I'm incredibly grateful! However, as much as I felt like I might be an imposter in the publishing world, far stronger was the sense of responsibility I felt to seize the opportunity to create works that I wished I had seen on the shelves when I was a kid and I hope add the the tapestry of stories sharing diverse cultures and perspectives for my kids and kids around the world.

Don't forget to grab a copy here!

Where can readers keep up with your work?

I'm across social media channels with the handle @mightykindkids (most active on Instagram) and can be found on LinkedIn as well. I'd love to connect!

Our second special guest author for today’s issue is…María de Lourdes Victoria author of Josie’s Broody Hen

Could you tell me a bit about where this photo was taken? Is it special to your book in some way?

This a photo with my granddaughter Josefina who is my co-author, we were in Petaluma, CA, the setting of the story. We were having an ice cream to celebrate the completion of the book.

Grab a copy of the book here!

Tell me about your book without telling me about your book - share any literary inspirations behind your book! If there are none, the gap you wanted to fill in the literary canon with your book.

Many children are blessed with a pet in their lives and often the desires and demise of their pets become their own. Josefina’s hen wants to be a mom more than anything else in the world and Josefina wants her hen to realize her dream and have chicks. What can she do to help her hen realize her dream?

What are two central themes in your book that you connect with the most and why? 

The themes are the deep desire to become a mother, the disillusion and anger at not being able to be a mom, also the compassion and empathy towards the people and pets that we love, and the never-ending imagination of children that saves the day.

If a book were home, where would your home be? 

My home is my family

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If your book was a famous musician who would it be and why? 

My grandson Lucas, a wonderful pianist, he is not famous in the world yet… but he is famous in my heart.

What comfort food could a reader pair with your book? 

Café con leche

Where can readers keep up with your work? (Feel free to include any social media accounts that you'd like readers to follow) 

https://www.mariadelourdesvictoria.com/

Facebook 

Twitter

Instagram

Thank you to Nadine Fonseca y María de Lourdes Victoria for taking the time to chat with me about their books! Please please make sure you grab them (or request your local library carry them!) #SupportLatinxLit!

Nadine Fonseca is on a mission to build a brighter, kinder, and more inclusive future, one young reader at a time. She founded Mighty Kind, an educational multimedia company for families that aims to use the simple and universal concept of kindness as a bridge to antiracist/anti-bias learning. Only a Trenza Away is her debut children’s picture book and is based on some of her fond childhood memories. Nadine is neurodivergent, a biracial Latina, wife, and mother of four. She holds an MBA and is a proud member of the LGBTQIA2S+ community. She believes that everyone, big or small, has the power to change the world.

Synopsis for Only a Trenza Away:

A father's love for his daughter is joyfully expressed during their nightly routine when he braids her hair and shares imaginative bedtime stories.

Every night Xia's father delicately braids her hair before bed. As he gently tugs and twists and tightens her hair, they embark on imaginative and fun adventures as he makes up stories about Xia and her trenzas, or braids. In one story, her trenza becomes a sturdy twisted vine that she uses to bravely swing through the jungle. In another, her trenzas are jump ropes as she catches the beat to play Double Dutch with the best players in the neighborhood.

One night, after story time, Xia worries what she would do if Papa is not there to help her in a real adventure. Papa shares with her the most important story of all:

Papa says, "There will be adventures, like going to your new school, when you'll need to be brave, patient, focused, and curious. And while you might be on your own, you'll never be alone, mi'ja.

Papa finished brushing her hair and carefully parted it into three sections.

"This section will remind you of the people who love you deeply."

"This one is for the many people who need your love for them."

"And this one . . . this will help you remember to love yourself exactly as you are now and who you hope to be. They are stronger woven together and will help protect your hair and your heart."

Maria de Lourdes Victoria is an award-winning author whose work has been published internationally in English and Spanish. Maria’s third novel, La Casa de los Secretos, published by Planeta de Libros in July, 2016, took second place as the Best Novel in Spanish Award at the International Latino Book Awards. Her second novel, Más allá de la Justicia (Entre Líneas, Libros y Palabras, 2010) took third place in Barcelona, Spain, at the prestigious Premio Planeta de Novela Book Awards. Her first novel, Los Hijos Del Mar ( Ediciones B, 2006), was a finalist for the Mariposa Award for Best First Novel in Spanish at the 2006 International Latino Book Awards in Washington, D.C. Her short stories have appeared in prominent literary journals, such as Nimrod and Quercus Review. Her social justice articles and stories have been featured in numerous legal journals. Maria resides in Seattle and Petaluma and is currently working on her fourth novel.

Synopsis for Josie’s Broody Hen: Every time Josie collects the eggs from the henhouse, her broody hen protests. She doesn't want her eggs taken. The broody hen wants to be a mom. Josie knows that without a rooster, her hen will never have chicks. How to help her? Find out what Josie must do so that her hen can fulfill her wish to be a mom.

The best way you can support Latinx/e authors and Latinx/e literature is by doing the following:

REQUEST that your local library carry a copy

PURCHASE a copy of the book for a friend, family member, or your nemesis (hey! I’m sure they read too).

SHOUT about the book on any social media platform you might have or to your friends and family!

SHARE this interview widely! Word of mouth does wonders for connecting readers to books.

REVIEW their books on any website that sells books!

#NuevasPáginas is a space that aims to amplify and spotlight Hispanic/Latine/x authors with newly published books. The goal is to connect readers to their next favorite Hispanic/Latine/x authored book through a mini casual get-to-know-the-book-and-author interview. So please help me connect to more readers. So that together we can continue to build the love/support of Latine literature!

Hey Book Franz!

It’s gloomy and rainy on my end of the planet — which always feels like great nap & reading weather. How have you been? I received so many lovely notes and comments in the last #NuevasPáginas issue. They made me all teary-eyed and most importantly they helped me feel safe. Sharing where I’m at emotionally/mentally hasn’t always been easy because I’m just now learning how to identify and give space to my feelings. So I am deeply thankful to folks who let me know they hear me and see me. I’m excited to be back this week with another exciting author interview! But in case you missed the last one — check it out below.

What’s Lupita reading this week?

I have fully given in to celebrating Mental Health Awareness Month by taking my time to carefully read through ‘But What Will People Say!: Navigating Mental Health, Identity, Love, and Family Between Cultures’ by . I should be transparent and say that I did not plan for things to work out like this — reading such a powerful book on mental health during Mental Health Awareness Month. The universe made this happen.

You see, a while ago, I was scrolling Twitter and I came across a set of tweets that stopped me in my tracks. Those tweets were posted by . They stopped me in my tracks because, for the first time, there was someone making space for my experience growing up as a child of immigrants while also making space for the obstacles my parents navigated as immigrants in a new country. At the time, I didn’t know that multiple things could be held together.

So, I, of course, needed to follow the creator behind such powerful tweets and I’ve been following along — learning how to hold space for myself and my lived experiences as well as staying curious to my parent’s lived experiences. That’s why I’m so deeply honored I get to chat with this week! If you are in the DC/MD/VA area, I’d love to have you join us. We are going to have such a good chat, I can feel it in my bones.

It should also be said that this book is one that is so very much needed in this world. I believe that so much that I gave a copy of it to my therapist — so grab a copy even if you aren’t able to physically join us.

May 16th at 7 PM ET via Politics and Prose (Union Market) join us to celebrate Sahaj Kaur from Brown Girl Therapy debut book ‘But What Will People Say’! No registration is required!

Without further ado…our special guest author for today’s Nuevas Pagina issue is…Raquel V. Reyes author of Calypso, Corpses, and Cooking!

Could you tell me a bit about where this photo was taken? Is it special to your book in some way?

This foto was taken by Biscayne Bay, the body of water between Miami and Miami Beach. If you follow me on Instagram, you've seen dozens of selfies and sunrises on the bay. It is a place I go to restore and center myself. I've seen manatees, tarpon, dolphin, and all sorts of feathered and finned creatures there. In my Caribbean Kitchen Mystery series, the fictional village of Coral Shores is on Biscayne Bay.  

Grab a copy of the book here!

Tell me about your book without telling me about your book - share any literary inspirations behind your book! If there are none, the gap you wanted to fill in the literary canon with your book

As an only child, the library was my summertime friend. That is where I fell in love with traditional mysteries. First, it was Agatha Christie, which quickly led to Elizabeth Peters, leading me to the wonderful world of cozy mysteries. Cozies have little to no on-page violence, a who-done-it to solve, and usually an independent female protagonist that knows her worth. But what those delightful and entertaining novels didn't have were main characters (hell, not even supporting characters) that looked and spoke like me. I pursued writing with the intent to change that. From my early stories to my current ones, my main characters are Latina, and they use Spanglish. 

What are two central themes in your book that you connect with the most and why?

Food Anthropology and Decolonization. 

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If a book was home, where would your home be?

It would probably be a book of poems by Lucille Clifton or Sonia Sanchez. I was a poet before I became a novelist. Poems are the cells that built my heart.

If your book was a famous musician who would it be?

Celia Cruz! Why? Because she is The Queen! I love salsa. It reminds me of the parties my abuelos had when I was a kid. There was always dancing and delicious food. There was happiness and joy.

Héctor Lavoe and Wille Colón would be good too. Their songs have crime and injustice themes, along with great beats and a killer horn section.

I mention a few Bad Bunny songs in my novels. I think Benito is awesome. I appreciate that he speaks out for marginalized and persecuted people. I love how he reps Puerto Rico. I'm Cuban-American, but I married a Puerto Rican. I lived on the island for a while— that's where we met. Actually, we met in a photography class at La Liga de Arte en Viejo San Juan. Book three in the series, Barbacoa, Bomba, and Betrayal, is set in Old San Juan. Writing it made me so homesick for the island. That book's song is definitely "El Apagón."

What comfort food could a reader pair with your book?

Either croquetas y Jupiña or a pastelito de guayaba y un cortadito. But you could also go with bacalaitos or any cuchifrito really. Picadillo con arroz with a side of tostones would be delicious. Some mojo to dip them in is a requirement.

I write culinary mysteries. My MC, Miriam Quiñones, is a food anthropologist focused on the Caribbean. This list could go on and on.

Hear me on NPR's Audacious telling a story about frijoles negros, a pressure cooker, and a lost cookbook.

Don't forget to grab a copy of the book!

In what ways has access (or little to no access) to Hispanic/Latinx/e literature defined you as a writer?

The only writers I encountered in my school years were Mexican and Chicano. They were mainly poets or literary writers, not popular fiction. Their works had themes I could connect with—a sharedness, a Latinidad, but it was a sharedness in the big sense (generalities due to being colonized by Spain) but not in the details. When I began creating work for public eyes and ears (first poems, then plays, and eventually novels), I made sure to get into those details that spoke to my Miami-Cuban heritage as well as our island siblings Puerto Rico, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic.

Recently, I got the best compliment. It was in a review of Calypso, Corpses, and Cooking on Latinx in Publishing's site. "Reyes writes cultural love letters to Latinx communities." Love letters! Yes!

Where can readers keep up with your work?

I am @LatinaSleuths across social media. I'm on Instagram the most, and I post on TikTok occasionally.

My website is LatinaSleuths.com.

Join my newsletter. It is monthly, and I usually have a book giveaway opportunity for my readers.

Raquel V. Reyes writes Latina protagonists. Her Cuban-American heritage, Miami, and Spanglish feature prominently in her work. Mango, Mambo, and Murder, the first in the Caribbean Kitchen Mystery series, won a LEFTY for Best Humorous Mystery. It was nominated for an Agatha Award and optioned for film. Raquel's short stories appear in various anthologies, including The Best American Mystery and Suspense 2022. Find her across social media platforms as @LatinaSleuths and on her website LatinaSleuths.com

Synopsis for Calypso, Corpses, and Cooking:

It's time for a savory soirée--but something sinister is stewing--in Raquel V. Reyes's second delightful Caribbean Kitchen mystery, perfectly delicious for fans of Mia P. Manansala.

Fall festivities are underway in Coral Shores, Miami. Cuban-American cooking show star Miriam Quiñones-Smith wakes up to find a corpse in her front yard. The body by the fake tombstone is the woman that was kicked out of the school's Fall Festival the day before.

Miriam's luck does not improve. Her passive-aggressive mother-in-law puts her in charge of the Women's Club annual gala. But this year, it's not canapes and waltzes. Miriam and her girlfriends-squad opt for fun and flavor. They want to spice it up with Caribbean food trucks and a calypso band. While making plans at the country club, they hear a volatile argument between the new head chef and the club's manager. Not long after, the chef swan dives to his death at the bottom of the grand staircase.

Was it an accident? Or was it Beverly, the sous chef, who is furious after being passed over for the job? Or maybe it was his ex-girlfriend, Anastasia?

Add two possible poisonings to the mix and Miriam is worried the food truck fun is going to be a major crash. As the clock ticks down and the body count goes up, Miriam's life is put in jeopardy. Will she connect the dots or die in the deep freeze? Foodies and mystery lovers alike will savor the denouement as the truth is laid bare in this simmering stew of rage, retribution, and murder.

The best way you can support Latinx/e authors and Latinx/e literature is by doing the following:

REQUEST that your local library carry a copy

PURCHASE a copy of the book for a friend, family member, or your nemesis (hey! I’m sure they read too).

SHOUT about the book on any social media platform you might have or to your friends and family!

SHARE this interview widely! Word of mouth does wonders for connecting readers to books.

REVIEW their books on any website that sells books!

#NuevasPáginas is a space that aims to amplify and spotlight Hispanic/Latine/x authors with newly published books. The goal is to connect readers to their next favorite Hispanic/Latine/x authored book through a mini casual get-to-know-the-book-and-author interview. So please help me connect to more readers. So that together we can continue to build the love/support of Latine literature!

Hey Book Franz!

I know I’ve touched on this before in previous newsletter issues but I don’t think I’ve really fully been honest. Heres the tea — many of you might already know this — I have a full time job that has nothing to do with reading or books. Due to that and life in general, there have been times that I had to skip a week, weeks even months posting on Instagram, TikTok and sending out author interviews via my newsletter. I share that to say that I currently have a backlog of wonderful Latine authors who have previously submitted their interviews to be featured here. Many of them submitted them last year.

I’ve felt guilty and ashamed about that and those feelings caused me to feel overwhelmed which resulted in me ultimately shutting down instead of working to clear the backlog. I have thought about hiring someone to help and even have someone in mind but again all these overwhelming feelings have prevented me from any form of action. For some reason thats how my brain works when it comes to anxiety and feelings in general. I get stuck in a circle of negative thoughts.

So I’m spilling the tea in hopes that standing/facing those feelings and truth, might help me let go of some of the shame I am feeling around it and free me up to work through the backlog. I also share that because I have always prided myself in being honest and transparent about my mental health and the ways in which it impacts me. Though in hindsight its easier to share “lessons learned” instead of share the raw reality of it. So if you have any cheering energy — cheers are welcome and I’m so thankful to the authors that have been so patient and kind waiting to be featured here. You can expect a lot more newsletter issues featuring author interviews!

Celebrate Asian/Pacific Islander Month & Mental Health Awareness month (what a coincidence!) with me:

This month I get to be in conversation with three authors that I deeply admire! If you live near the DC/MD/VA area, join us. All events are FREE and open to the public to attend. Registration is highly encouraged. Also, one of these conversations is hybrid so you can join us virtually:

TONIGHT! Help us celebrate Nicole Chung’s paperback release of her stunning memoir ‘A Living Remedy’ via East City Bookshop. Register to attend here. Virtual attendance welcomed.

May 16th at 7 PM ET via Politics and Prose (Union Market) join us to celebrate Sahaj Kaur from Brown Girl Therapy debut book ‘But What Will People Say’! No registration required!

Tuesday, May 28th at 7:00 PM ET join us at the MLK Library in partnership with Loyalty Books & The Writers Center to celebrate R.O. Kwon’s electric sophomore novel ‘Exhibit’. Register to attend here.

See you online or in person soon and in case you missed it, there was a special newsletter issue that went out earlier this week in honor of my nine year #bookstaversary <3

Without further ado, our special guest author for today’s Nuevas Pagina issue is…Dr. Raquel M. Ortiz author of Broken Butterfly Wings

Could you tell me a bit about where this photo was taken? Is it special to your book in some way?

This photo was taken in a SoHo boutique, Zuri, the first day of my 2023 New York City book and album tour. I fell in love with the beautiful animals made out of African textiles, that reminded me of an illustration in Broken Butterfly Wings. The scene in the children’s picture book of the moment Gabriela remembers the sounds of the rainforest, El Yunque.

Grab a copy of the book here!

Tell me about your book without telling me about your book - share any literary inspirations behind your book! If there are none, the gap you wanted to fill in the literary canon with your book

My story (Broken Butterfly Wings) is about imagination and resistance. Days after Hurricane Maria I read my first book, Sofia and the Magic, Musical Mural, to all the kindergarteners of PS 9 (Brooklyn, NY). The line about Sofi flying over the lush mountain vegetation of El Yunque was hard to read aloud. That day there was no lush vegetation, or electricity, or even drinkable water on the Island. As the island slowly began to recover I reflected on what it takes for a place, and a people, to rebuild. This gave birth to Broken Butterfly Wings.

What are two central themes in your book that you connect with the most and why?

I strongly connect with the theme of the power of imagination because I need to believe in a better tomorrow, in a better, safer, more beautiful world, and in our power to imagine and then make change happen. The other theme I connect with is trusting someone to help in the process of realizing a dream. Every day I become more aware of how important it is to have people to lean on and trust when I’m trying something new or doing something scary. Learning to be humble enough to ask for and accept help has been and continues to be something that I try to practice.

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If a book was home, where would your home be?

In Loíza, Puerto Rico, a coastal town that’s full of art, culture and tradition. Loíza has a bittersweet sort of beauty, tastes like coconut and mango and is full of intense Afro Puerto Rican bomba music. It’s also the home of the Vejigante, a carnival figure, a trickster who pokes fun at us and makes us take a look at and question who and what we are. 

I wrote a song about Loíza:

                In the small town of Loíza

                with a beauty bittersweet.

                There’s a carnival fiesta,

                to a bouncy plena beat.

                Every summer there’s parading,

                Lots of dancing in the street.

                And the super star attraction?

                A Vejigante, what a treat!

If your book was a famous musician who would it be?

William Cepeda because his music creates new sounds, new fusions and takes Puerto Rican music to a new level. When William plays the conch shell, an instrument played by the indigenous people of Puerto Rico, the Taínos, his music fills me with pride and hope and reminds me how beautiful and resilient Puerto Ricans are.

To learn more about William, visit at williamcepeda.com

 What comfort food could a reader pair with your book?

A hot cup of chocolate (made with Chocolate Cortés, of course), with cheese and crackers. The hot chocolate should be sipped while wearing cozy pajamas and wrapped up in a soft, warm blanket.

Don't forget to grab the book here!

In what ways has access (or little to no access) to Hispanic/Latinx/e literature defined you as a writer?

The lack of Hispanic/Latinx/e literature created a hunger that led me to read Puerto Rican writers from the Island, as well as great Latin American writers, in Spanish. I remember Esmeralda Santiago's first book, When I Was Puerto Rican (1993), which was published when I was in college. Finally, there was a book about a diasporic Puerto Rican, like me, written in English. Then I came across poetry by Sandra María Esteves and soon began reading Nuyorican poetry. There writing gave me hope and gave me wings.

Where can readers keep up with your work?

All my published works can be purchased via links on my website and linktree. My social media links are included below as well as a link to the new Bomba album Que Vengan Los Ninos.

Website:          https://drraquelmortiz.com

Twitter:           https://twitter.com/rmargueritte

Instagram:       https://www.instagram.com/drraquelmortiz/

Linktree: https://linktr.ee/drraquelmortiz

Spotify Album:

Dr. Raquel M. Ortiz, an Emmy-nominated documentary filmmaker, is a social anthropologist, educator, storyteller, playwright, performer, poet, composer, editor, illustrator, and author of children’s books and songs. Her newest project, an Afro-Puerto Rican bomba album for children, entitled Que vengan los niños, includes songs that are sung in Spanish, English, and also bilingual. The album, created in collaboration with William Cepeda, a four-time Grammy-nominated Latin Jazz legend, composer, and educator, contains 12 songs ranging in topics from the beauty of the island of Puerto Rico to animals, bomba music, and Boricua pride in the USA, and incorporate traditional Latin American children’s songs. Four songs are inspired by Dr. Ortiz’s children’s picture books and theater productions.

Synopsis for Broken Butterfly Wings:

Gabriela is super excited when her gift from Titi Sylvia finally arrives. She loves the colorful, glittery butterfly wings! She stands in the middle of her room and flaps and flaps her new wings, but nothing happens. She jumps off her bed, vigorously moving the wings up and down, but again, nada. She hops down the hallway and the stairs, but she still can't fly! Disappointed, Gabriela goes to the garage, digs into her father's toolbox and sets about trying to fix the broken butterfly wings. Maybe she can add a battery or an engine. Her father has a better idea, though, and encourages her to close her eyes and think about where she would like to fly. Soon she is envisioning El Yunque, a rainforest on the island of Puerto Rico that is full of tall green trees, humming waterfalls and chattering birds. She can even hear the coqíu, a tiny tree frog that lives only on the island, singing its special song: coqíu-coqíu. Demonstrating the joy found in using one's imagination, this bilingual picture book depicts a young girl drawing on her senses-smell, hearing, sight-to return to a beloved place. Kids will appreciate the beauty of the rainforest's birds, frogs and other natural wonders while admiring a strong girl willing to create solutions to problems.

Thank you to Dr. Raquel M. Ortiz for taking the time to chat with me about her book! Please please make sure you purchase a copy (or request your local library carry a copy) #SupportLatinxLit!

The best way you can support Latinx/e authors and Latinx/e literature is by doing the following:

REQUEST that your local library carry a copy

PURCHASE a copy of the book for a friend, family member, or your nemesis (hey! I’m sure they read too).

SHOUT about the book on any social media platform you might have or to your friends and family!

SHARE this interview widely! Word of mouth does wonders for connecting readers to books.

REVIEW their books on any website that sells books!