Hello 2024 + Dreaming Big for Latine Lit

Welcome to your year of reading Latine Lit all year long with the #ReadLatineLit reading challenge

Jan 24, 2024

Hello lovely Book Franz,

Happy New Year! Yes, I know it’s almost February, which means I am well beyond the allowable timeframe to wish someone a Happy New Year but in my defense, it’s been forever! Yes, it’s true, that part is also my fault but…..well, I have no good excuse. It’s the same old story with me - I’m juggling many wonderful things I enjoy doing and sometimes to juggle one thing well, other things need to be set down for a bit. That said I want to acknowledge my brief disappearance from your inbox and assure you that I’ll always come back.

One of my goals for the year is to show up more consistently in this space for the financial supporters of this newsletter. I know many of you support the newsletter financially as a way to show gratitude for the book recs/work on social media I provide but I want to be able to provide more for you all! So I’m looking into ways to free myself up so I can show up more here & that might mean bringing on someone to help me out — which I can only remotely consider thanks to you and your contributions! :)

On to reading specific goals — this year, I kicked off the New Year by introducing a new reading challenge called #ReadLatineLit, inspired by the many wonderful reading challenges created by Bookstagrammers on Instagram. It was also inspired by the realization that in 2023 I read over 30+ Latine-authored books & it’s the first time I’ve read that many books by Latine authors in one single year. I want to continue reading as many books by Latine authors as I can this year but I’d like some company!

The reading challenge is very easy to follow and I’ve even created tracking templates I have included below. All you have to do is commit to reading one book by a Latine author a month in 2024 & if you can, post about it on any social media channel using the hashtag! Throughout the year I’ll be doing check-ins & hosting gift card giveaways for those that participate!

Already there has been such an incredible amount of interest in folks participating. I am beyond thrilled. I am shook. Why? because I see the potential a challenge like this carries to get people to support and read Latine Lit. I see you folks from all walks of life tagging me in posts about what they’ll be reading during the challenge or tagging me in a completed book! The excitement feels so huge and good to me. It’s so overdue too. Latine literature deserves to receive buzz and excitement from all types of folks. I am also shook by the response because I could see it could become more! How it can become HUGE. I want it to become HUGE. I want it to build into a growing wave of readers from all backgrounds committed to exploring Latine literature loudly on social media and beyond. Our stories deserve to be read widely. To be reviewed and amplified widely. So I see this challenge as a way for Latine literature to continue to gain recognition.

I hope you’ll consider joining the challenge. I hope you’ll tell your friends and family to join. Create a mini book club or join one, encouraging them to pick a Latine-authored book!

I have so many ideas running through my head of how to create more pockets of communities that want to explore Latine literature together in person. So if you have a bookstore, event space, book festival, conferences etc, and want to collaborate on a #ReadLatineLit event — that can for sure be a thing. Dream big with me for Latine literature. My email is open to any suggestions for collaboration. In the meantime, I leave you with the tracker templates and a list of new Latine-authored books coming out this month (mostly adult books- thank you Adriana from boricuareads for helping me come up with this list)! I’ll be back in your inbox with a new interview this week. If you know of a Latine authored book coming out in January not listed below, shout it out in the comment section for others to see!