Latine Authors Longlisted For The National Book Awards

Latinx In Publishing would like to congratulate the Latine authors longlisted for the
2023 National Book Awards!

POETRY

José Olivarez, Promises of Gold
Henry Holt and Company / Macmillan Publishers

José Olivarez is the son of Mexican immigrants. His debut book of poems, Citizen Illegal, was a finalist for the PEN/Jean Stein Award and a winner of the Chicago Review of Books Award for poetry. It was named a top book of 2018 by the Adroit Journal, NPR, and the New York Public Library. Along with Felicia Chavez and Willie Perdomo, he co-edited the poetry anthology The BreakBeat Poets Vol. 4: LatiNext. He co-hosts the poetry podcast The Poetry Gods.

NONFICTION

Cristina Rivera Garza, Liliana’s Invincible Summer: A Sister’s Search for Justice
Hogarth / Penguin Random House    

Cristina Rivera Garza is the award-winning author of The Taiga Syndrome and The Iliac Crest, among many other books. A recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship and the Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz Prize, Rivera Garza is the M.D. Anderson Distinguished Professor in Hispanic Studies, and director of the PhD program in creative writing in Spanish at the University of Houston.

FICTION

Justin Torres, Blackouts
Farrar, Straus and Giroux / Macmillan Publishers

Justin Torres is the author of We the Animals, which won the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award, was translated into 15 languages, and was adapted into a feature film. He was named a National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 honoree, a Stegner Fellow at Stanford University, a Radcliffe Fellow at Harvard University, and a Cullman Center Fellow at the New York Public Library. His short fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, Harper’s, Granta, Tin House, and The Washington Post. He lives in Los Angeles, and teaches at the University of California, Los Angeles.

TRANSLATED LITERATURE

Stênio Gardel, The Words That Remain
Translator, Bruna Dantas Lobato
New Vessel Press

Stênio Gardel was born in 1980 in the rural northeast of Brazil. The Words That Remain is his first novel.

Juan Cárdenas, The Devil of the Provinces
Translator, Davis
Coffee House Press

Juan Cárdenas is a Colombian art critic, curator, translator, and author of seven works of fiction, including his novel Los estratos, which received the Otras Voces Otros Ámbitos Prize. He has translated the works of such writers as William Faulkner, Thomas Wolfe, Gordon Lish, David Ohle, J.M. Machado de Assis, and Eça de Queirós. Cárdenas currently coordinates the masters program in creative writing at the Instituto Caro y Cuervo in Bogotá, where he works as a professor and researcher.

Pilar Quintana, Abyss Translator, Lisa Dillman
World Editions

Pilar Quintana is a Colombian author. In 2007, Hay Festival selected her as one of the most promising young authors of Latin America. Her previous novel, The Bitch, won an English PEN Translates award and was a Finalist for the 2020 National Book Award for Translated Literature. It also won the Colombian Biblioteca de Narrativa Prize, and was chosen as one of the most valuable objects to preserve for future generations in a marble time capsule in Bogotá. Abyss, her latest novel, was awarded the Alfaguara de Novela Prize.

Fernanda Melchor, This Is Not Miami Translator, Sophie Hughes
New Directions Publishing Corporation

Born in Veracruz, Mexico, in 1982, Fernanda Melchor’s novel Hurricane Season was shortlisted for the International Booker Prize, Longlisted for the National Book Award for Translated Literature, and was a New York Times Notable Book.

Book Review: Yaqui Delgado Wants to Kick Your Ass by Meg Medina, illustrated by Mel Valentine Vargas

If you’re reading this review, you probably know just how petrifying high school can be. Not fitting in, not feeling good enough, getting good grades, romance, friendships, body image. High school is a lot, on top of the struggles with family and identity that are often prevalent as you make the transition into a young adult. Add social media and cyber-bullying into the mix and high school? Yeah, it’s hell.

Meg Medina’s award-winning novel, Yaqui Delgado Wants to Kick Your Ass, is expertly transformed by Mel Valentine Vargas into a graphic novel that is pertinent to teens of today. It takes elements that were strongest in Medina’s 2013 prose and brings them to life in a revitalizing way. We still feel the yearning, loneliness, and vulnerability that Medina crafted for us through Piddy Sanchez’s story, but Vargas expertly gets us to know Piddy through their contemporary art.

“Meg Medina’s award-winning novel, “Yaqui Delgado Wants to Kick Your Ass”, is expertly transformed by Mel Valentine Vargas into a graphic novel that is pertinent to teens of today. It takes elements that were strongest in Medina’s 2013 prose and brings them to life in a revitalizing way. ”

Piddy Sanchez feels herself slipping, and she feels alone.

Her mom Clara works late, and is doing the best she can to raise Piddy as a single mom. And despite her mom doing everything she can for Piddy, Piddy still feels like a piece of her is missing. Her father is no longer in the picture, choosing instead to live with a second family in the Dominican Republic. Her best friend Mitzi is actually fitting in at her school, and forgetting about Piddy. Her grades are falling, she's skipping class, she’s had to move, and oh yeah, Yaqui Delgado wants to kick her ass.

Though the title is centered around Yaqui, we actually get to know her very little, except that she hates Piddy for being the new girl at school. She can’t stand the way that Piddy shakes her hips when she walks. Piddy isn’t the stereotypical Latina, but she’s just as Latina as the rest of the girls at school. Still, she knows she doesn’t fit in because of her accentless Spanish, her light skin, and her adeptness in the classroom. And Yaqui blames Piddy for talking to Alfredo, a boy that Yaqui has her eyes on.

So, after weeks of bullying, Yaqui finally kicks Piddy’s ass. And posts the fight online for the whole school to see.

We know today just as we did back in 2013 (when Meg Medina’s prose novel was first published) about the intensity of cyberbullying. The fact is, social media has become even more of a staple in young teens’ lives than it was ten years ago. It is proof that young readers, young Latine readers, need Piddy’s story now more than ever.

Yes, Piddy Sanchez is going through it. Kids her age can suck, and the pressure to succeed and fit in threatens to make her head explode. But, the most important thing that Piddy learns through all of this is that she is never alone. She learned how to play piano from her mom, how to dance and shake her hips from Lila, and how to make new friends and try new things from her best friend Mitzi. She has friends and family who love her and will stick up for her no matter what she is going through. With a strong community around her, Piddy learns to stick up for herself and gathers the strength to not give up, even when it feels like the entire world is against her.

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Meg Medina is the current National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature. She is the author of the Newbery Medal–winning book Merci Suárez Changes Gears, which was also a 2018 Kirkus Prize finalist, and which was followed by two more acclaimed books about the Suárez family: Merci Suárez Can’t Dance and Merci Suárez Plays It Cool. Her young adult novels include Yaqui Delgado Wants to Kick Your Ass, which won the 2014 Pura Belpré Author Award, and which will be published in 2023 as a graphic novel illustrated by Mel Valentine Vargas; Burn Baby Burn, which was long-listed for the National Book Award; and The Girl Who Could Silence the Wind. She is also the author of picture books Evelyn Del Rey Is Moving Away, illustrated by Sonia Sánchez, Jumpstart’s 2020 Read for the Record selection; Mango, Abuela, and Me, illustrated by Angela Dominguez, which was a Pura Belpré Author Award Honor Book; and Tía Isa Wants a Car, illustrated by Claudio Muñoz, which won the Ezra Jack Keats New Writer Award; and the biography for young readers She Persisted: Sonia Sotomayor. The daughter of Cuban immigrants, she grew up in Queens, New York, and now lives in Richmond, Virginia.

Mel Valentine Vargas is a Queer Cuban-American graphic novelist based in Chicago. They hope to draw the kind of illustrations that their younger self, and others like them, could have seen to feel less alone. Mel Valentine Vargas loves singing in Spanish, playing farming video games, and eating lots of gyoza with their friends.

Illianna Gonzalez-Soto lives in San Diego, CA with her dog Fluffers and her ever-growing #tbr pile. She currently works with ReedPop as a Marketing Coordinator. Follow her on Twitter & Instagram @iliannagsoto.

Review and Author/Illustrator Q & A: Cool Green: Amazing, Remarkable Trees by Lulu Delacre

Cool Green: Amazing, Remarkable Trees begins with a question.

“¿Por qué, abuelo? Why?”

A young girl asks her grandfather why he’s in awe of trees. He’s a landscaper who believes trees are astounding. He begins to share why.

There’s the General Sherman, considered the “world’s biggest clean air machine,” and the monkey puzzle—“a living fossil and cousin of trees from long ago.” And there’s the coconut palm, which author-illustrator Lulu Delacre wanted to include because it was a big part of her upbringing in Puerto Rico.

Out now by Candlewick Press, Cool Green: Amazing, Remarkable Trees is a tender and lyrical ode to the trees of the world, with a strong backbone in research. With each page, the Latino landscaper guides readers through the wonders of a select group of trees. We learn about the umbrella thorn acacia, which “dresses its branches with needles and hooks,” and we take in the baobab—“an upside-down tree with a trunk like a sponge.”

Delacre’s illustrations, like the trees she features, brim with life. For this particular book, she opted for a mixed media—embedding live specimens like seeds, fronds, and leaves, into the art. Once she was done with the pages, the publisher photographed it in such a way that readers can see shadows on the page from the specimens. The art as a whole will likely nurture greater curiosity about the world’s trees.

By the end of the book, readers are left with more knowledge about trees and the uniqueness each brings. It’s also humbling to learn that more than seventy-three thousand species of trees inhabit Earth. Cool Green: Amazing, Remarkable Trees only scratches the surface, but it’s a quality introduction for both readers of all ages.

The root of this book is a love for nature and learning. Delacre, a big nature lover herself, dedicated it to the young stewards of the Earth.

On behalf of Latinx In Publishing, I spoke with Delacre recently about the inspiration behind Cool Green, her research and illustration processes, and more.

“By the end of the book, readers are left with more knowledge about trees and the uniqueness each brings. It’s also humbling to learn that more than seventy-three thousand species of trees inhabit Earth. ”

This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.

Amaris Castillo (AC): Congratulations on the publication of Cool Green: Amazing, Remarkable Trees. What inspired you to write and illustrate this story?

Lulu Delacre (LD): It goes back to 2019, when I first saw an exhibit on trees, and specifically on the symbiotic nature between fungi and trees. That, paired with the fact that I’ve loved trees all my life. It’s a place of peace for me—walking in the woods and working in the garden.

So all the love of nature, paired with that exhibit and a love of learning—because I absolutely adore to learn—gave way to what happened next. I saw this exhibit in 2019, and then in 2020 we were on lockdown. My safe place again became walking the woods of national parks, gardening, and research. I also noticed how essential workers were thanked and how, all of a sudden, they became visible. I noticed that some people who worked in essential jobs know much more than what you think they do. That’s what made me appear the Latino landscaper who knows a lot more than what you would expect somebody that comes in and does work in your lawn might know. I wanted to share with children my awe of trees, through the voice of this landscaper.

AC: In your book, this Latino landscaper teaches his granddaughter about the different kinds of trees all over the world. Can you talk about your decision to make him a landscaper? Why was that important?

LD: For me it was important that the grandfather is a landscaper, because I have always admired the work of Latinos that come (here). . . When I had this home that I needed to take care of, I did have the help of someone who worked for me. He did the basic lawn care for many years. Talking to him, I realized that he knew so much more than what was apparent. I wanted to showcase that to children, because sometimes a reader might dismiss these essential workers. They might dismiss these people, and I feel that, that is an incorrect way of seeing life, because all of us have something to contribute to society.

A landscaper may not have the degree that a professor may have, but at the same time his knowledge is in the knowledge of the land, in the knowledge of plants, in the knowledge that perhaps came in ways that are not taught in the classroom—that are taught by nature itself. And that is valid knowledge, too.

AC: Your text in Cool Green is both poetic and informative. What was it like to balance both in order to tell a compelling ode to trees?

LD: That’s a great question. First and foremost is research, which I adore. And I did tons of it. Because I wanted the young reader to fall in love with these trees, I searched for what I call the “cool facts.” I literally made a list. If I were looking at these as a young reader, what facts would I find really interesting? What is it that I find cool about this tree? And that’s what I wrote.

After I had all my facts, then I went back and tried to weave these facts in a way that was lyrical. For me, it’s a succinct way of saying a very important thing in very few words that perhaps has more of a chance to stay in the young brain because it’s short. Perhaps it has a way of telling him, or her, or they, just enough that they feel compelled to turn the pages and find more about this specific tree.

AC: In your notes at the end of the book, you write that there are more than seventy-three thousand species of trees that inhabit the Earth. How did you decide which ones you wanted to feature in Cool Green, like the monkey puzzle or the coconut palm?

LD: I’m sorry, but I found out about the coconut palm as soon as I could because I wanted to somehow feature it. It was so much part of my upbringing, and knowing that it was the second largest seed, I said ‘OK, this is the fact. I’m not going to go with the largest seed. It’s going to be the second one, because I want to feature the coconut palm.’ Besides, it has a lot of uses.

For some young children, it’s about the champion tree—the tallest tree, or the tree with the largest girth, like the Ahuehuete from Mexico. This is a champion tree that takes literally 17 adults holding hands to go around its girth. So I wanted to have the champion trees, as well as some amazing trees that I didn’t know about until I started doing the research. Like the Eucalyptus deglupta—the rainbow gum—which literally seems that it couldn’t exist. I do sessions about this book to kids and, when I show them the illustration of the rainbow gum, I ask them, “Do you think that this tree is real, or do you think I made up those colors?” Of course, many of them think that it’s all made up. So I show them photos, and the kids are amazed.

My vision was not only to showcase trees that kids could relate to, but also to do it in a global fashion. I wanted to show readers that you have these amazing trees all around the globe. You have to be in awe. You may have one that is right in your backyard, and you don’t know that it’s there.

AC: I understand that, as part of creating the illustrations, you searched for live specimens of trees. Can you share more about your process?

LD: It’s a mixed media. You can go to my site and see some of the pictures of the process. I used soft acrylics for flat colors. I decided to blend graphic shapes with accurate height and girth of specimens. I represented the surrounding animal life to hint of tree size scale. In an echo of scientific observation I collected on my own, or sought from arboretums, leaves, twigs, cones, bark, and flowers of each species. I used some of the collected specimens to create textured hand printed papers. Finally, I selected a few chosen specimens to adhere to the art. It’s my own way of modeling for readers to do the same with trees they particularly like.

Then after everything was done, the publisher did a very good job of photographing it in such a way that you can see those shadows. So when I show the book to young people, I ask them, “Where is the specimen—the dry leaf that I collaged?” They can pinpoint it. That part was very well done by the publisher. It’s a whole process. Art for a book like this takes me about six months.

AC: What are you hoping young readers take away from Cool Green?

LD: My hope is that, by reading one of these poems, they feel compelled to know more about the specific tree that spoke to them. That it instills in them a little bit of awe for trees, and for what they do for us, humans and the Earth. Maybe they can also become collectors of specific leaves of their favorite trees. They might also be compelled to write their own poem based on facts about the tree that they particularly love.

Doing these books, for me, is like sowing seeds. You don’t know what is going to speak to a child and young minds are really where you want to sow these seeds. If you want to create stewards of the Earth, you must start with the youngest of children. Sometimes it’s just by picking up a book like Cool Green or Verde Fresco, reading a couple of pages and just telling your kid, “You know what? Let’s go out to the park nearby. Let’s go check the trees out there. Let’s see if we can find those leaves, and then let’s see if we can find oak leaves. And what kind of oak leaves do you see?” It’s a bridge to asking questions. And kids are just so curious. It’s really when they are young that you can, like I say, sow seeds that later on grow into amazing people.

AC: You have a new book titled Veo Veo, I See You. What can you share about this story?

LD: I am very excited about Veo Veo, I See You. It celebrates essential workers, but it does it for the youngest of children—to the point that the children that might be playing the veo veo game may not remember what the world went through in 2020. It’s a very joyful book. It’s told in the voice of Marisol, a young girl who discovers the true meaning of the word “essential” on an outing with her mother and her younger brother as they go on errands in the city. She’s playing veo veo and learns who is essential in her surrounding community.

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Three-time Pura Belpré Award honoree Lulu Delacre has been writing and illustrating children's books since 1980. The New York Times Bestselling artist was born and raised in Puerto Rico to Argentinean parents. Delacre says her Latino heritage and her life experiences inform her work. Her many titles include Arroz con Leche: Popular Songs and Rhymes from Latin America, a Horn Book Fanfare Book in print for over 30 years. Her bilingual picture book ¡Olinguito, de la A a la Z! Descubriendo el bosque nublado; Olinguito, from A to Z! Unveiling the Cloud Forest and her story collection Us, in Progress: Short Stories About Young Latinos have received multiple starred reviews and awards. Among her latest works are the art of Turning Pages by Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor and Cool Green: Amazing, Remarkable Trees. Delacre has lectured internationally and served as a juror for the National Book Awards. She has exhibited at The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art, The Original Art Show at the Society of Illustrators in New York, the Museum of Art of Puerto Rico, and the Zimmerli Art Museum among other venues. Reading is Fundamental honored her with a Champion of Children’s Literacy Award. For more visit her at www.luludelacre.com.

Amaris Castillo is an award-winning journalist, writer, and the creator of Bodega Stories, a series featuring real stories from the corner store. Her writing has appeared in La Galería Magazine, Aster(ix) Journal, Spanglish Voces, PALABRITAS, Dominican Moms Be Like… (part of the Dominican Writers Association’s #DWACuenticos chapbook series), and most recently Quislaona: A Dominican Fantasy Anthology and Sana, Sana: Latinx Pain and Radical Visions for Healing and Justice. Her short story, “El Don,” was a prize finalist for the 2022 Elizabeth Nunez Caribbean-American Writers’ Prize by the Brooklyn Caribbean Literary Festival. She is a proud member of Latinx in Publishing’s Writers Mentorship Class of 2023 and lives in Florida with her family and dog, Brooklyn.

Most Anticipated September 2023 Releases

September brought us some exciting book releases! Between picture books, fun and heartfelt romances, or a memoir that redefines the American Dream, there is something for everyone. Scroll below for a list of my most anticipated reads for September.

¡1,2,3 Baila! Series by Delia Ruiz | Illustrated by Graziela Andrade | On Sale September 5

Ever since I caught a glimpse of this series at the LA Times Festival of Books, I’ve been so excited for the official release! The ¡1,2,3 Baila! Series is a trio of bilingual books that teach children primary concepts through Latin music and dance. Merengue introduces Latin instruments and the sounds they make, Salsa teaches to count to 10, and Cumbia explores common manners like consent. 

I might not be a child, but the series features adorable illustrations and is such a creative and refreshing way to teach these concepts, and also introduce diverse settings and characters to kids.

First Gen: A Memoir by Alejandra Campoverdi | On Sale September 12

Sometimes I’m drawn to memoirs because the story seems so different from my own, other times it's the similarities in someone else’s tale that lure me in. With First Gen, it's a bit of both—it’s the familiar themes that draw me in to read about a story so unlike my own. In the same lifetime, Alejandra Campoverdi has been a child on welfare, a White House aide, a Harvard graduate, a gang member's girlfriend, and a candidate for U.S. Congress. Sharing her experience as a first generation Latina navigating social mobility, Campoverdi lays out a personal and intimate story of her journey though a life of contradictions. Always the trailblazer, Camporverdi redefines the narrative of the American Dream and brings to light the struggles of what it means to be a “First and Only.”

As Long as You Love Me by Marianna Leal |On Sale September 12

Long-term school nemesis, Catalina Diaz Solis and Gabriel Cabrera, find themselves in the biggest competition yet: the battle for a full-time job offer. Cata is desperate for the job, hoping it will guarantee her visa renewal; meanwhile, Gabriel finds himself preoccupied elsewhere, desperate for a date to his brother’s wedding. The solution? Gabe offers to step aside from consideration of the full-time job if Cata will be his plus-one. As Catalina grows closer to Gabe, she discovers there is more to him than she ever imagined. When things become complicated, she must decide what she is willing to do to make her dreams come true. 

Academic rivals? Enemies to lovers? Fake dating? Marianna Leal has got it all in this fun and emotional romance.

A British Girl's Guide to Hurricanes and Heartbreak by Laura Taylor Namey | On Sale September 26

The beauty of a good YA book is that it can carry so much depth and maturity while still maintaining a fun and accessible read. Laura Taylor Namey’s newest novel seems to be on this exact path. 

After losing her mother, Flora finds herself struggling with her grief, unable to control the inner chaos. While her family expects her to apply to university and take on more responsibility at their tea-shop business, Flora decides to head to Miami without telling anyone. There she finds a safe space in her surroundings, the Cuban-American culture of the city, and Baz Marín, a Miami Cuban who shares her love for photography. When her best friend, Gordon also finds his way to Florida, Flora realizes she must confront the “hurricane” of emotions, unable to hide in a city full of them. 

Book Review: Chupacarter and the Haunted Piñata by George Lopez and Ryan Calejo, illustrated by Santy Gutierrez

Chupacarter and the Haunted Piñata by George Lopez and Ryan Calejo, illustrated by Santy Gutierrez is the second book in the ChupaCarter series. Chupacarter and the Haunted Piñata focuses around Carter, the chupacabra, and his unlikely friendship with Jorge.

The reader finds Jorge in the midst of a town mystery that is decades old and seems to have come to life claiming many of the towns businesses through fires. The fires come every six years, caused by what most in the town believe is a haunted piñata. The piñata is part of a curse that was put on the small town, decades ago, by a rich boy who could no longer stand the cruel treatment that he received from his classmates. They had humiliated him for the last time and Boca Falls will forever know the day that they spoiled his birthday party.

“Lopez, Calejo and Gutierrez weaved together a story full of small town folklores, fires, suspects, a talking chupacabra, and a haunted piñata with colorful illustrations and witty banter to keep the reader and the listener engaged. ”

As the story moves forward, Jorge is pleasantly surprised that Carter has returned, from what was supposed to be a more permanent vacation, just in time to help him solve the mystery of the fires that threaten to doom Boca Falls. Liza and Ernie, friends of Jorge, retell the story of the Miguel Valdez Blackbriar, the rich boy who started the curse, to catch Jorge up to speed on just why Boca Falls is experiencing visits from a haunted piñata.

Along the way, we meet many peculiar characters that become main suspects as the mystery behind the fires start to unfold. The story will keep you guessing and rooting for Jorge, Liza, Ernie and ChupaCarter.

Though Chupacarter and the Haunted Piñata can be read as a stand alone story, if you are interested on more context, I do recommend getting your hands on the first book of the ChupaCarter series, where you are introduced to Carter and how he meets Jorge.

There’s a strong comedic tone throughout the story and not only are the authors able to reach the young reader but parents/guardians as well. Lopez, Calejo and Gutierrez weaved together a story full of small town folklores, fires, suspects, a talking chupacabra, and a haunted piñata with colorful illustrations and witty banter to keep the reader and the listener engaged.

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George Lopez's multifaceted career encompasses television, film, stand-up comedy, and late-night programs. He currently stars in and executive produces the NBC sitcom Lopez vs. Lopez, and he can also be seen in his Netflix original comedy special, We'll Do It for Half. His autobiography Why You Crying? was a New York Times bestseller. He has received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and was named one of the 25 Most Influential Hispanics in America by TIME magazine and one of the Top Ten Favorite Television Personalities by Harris Poll. ChupaCarter is his first series for children. Visit him online at GeorgeLopez.com.

Ryan Calejo is an award-winning author born and raised in South Florida. His critically acclaimed Charlie Hernández series has been featured on half a dozen state reading lists and is a two-time gold medal winner of the Florida Book Awards. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram @RyanCalejo.

Santy Gutiérrez grew up in Vigo and now lives in Corunna (La Coruña), both seaside cities in Spain. In his career, he has won acclaim as the Best Spanish Young Editorial Cartoonist and Best Galician Caricaturist, and he founded BAOBAB Studio Artists' Collective. His wife and son are his personal inspirations. Follow him on Instagram @SantyGutierrez_Art.

Angela “Angie” Ybarra is a senior student enrolled in the Nontraditional Degree Program (NDP) at Northeastern Illinois University. She hopes to work as a grant writer to assist local nonprofit organizations that address the issues of gentrification within Chicago's NorthWest side and help them find funding for their work. Angie loves to give her audience the opportunity to formulate their own views by presenting the facts or points of interest with the hope to move her audience into action.

“Journalism is what maintains democracy. It’s the force for progressive social change.” —Andrew Vachss, Author

Erika Meza Confronts Fear in ‘As Brave as a Lion’

As Brave as a Lion opens to a beaming little girl with wild dark hair. She rides a bicycle, chases birds, and jumps on a bed. By her side is a lion about five times her size, with a fiery orange-red mane.

“No matter how fast I go or where I end up,” the girl narrates, “my brave lion sticks with me—my lion’s always there!”

The girl believes the lion helps her find her voice when she’s too shy or too nervous. He helps her feel brave. He’s on her team.

Then one day, the duo set out to try a new “rocket-fast” slide at the playground. The giant cat follows the girl up the ladder. But once atop the slide, she learns that lions, too, can be afraid. Can she find her own bravery to become her lion’s lion this time?

Erika Meza, the author and illustrator of As Brave as a Lion (out now by Candlewick Press), brings readers a touching picture book about fear, friendship, courage, and how to show up for others. Meza’s expressive artwork and color choice add tremendous warmth. Valiente como un León, the Spanish edition, is also available.

“For me, the book was all about fear, and how you face fear when you’re that little—and even when you’re a grown-up,” said Meza, who was born in Mexico and now resides in North London. “It’s all about how, anytime that you’re afraid, you basically have to hold your fear by the hand and go, ‘You know what, fear? I know you’re there, and it’s OK. We’re going to do this, and we’re going to do this together.’”

“Erika Meza, the author and illustrator of “As Brave as a Lion” brings readers a touching picture book about fear, friendship, courage, and how to show up for others. Meza’s expressive artwork and color choice add tremendous warmth. ”

Meza explained that, in a way, this is what happens with her main character and the girl’s furry companion. “Throughout the book, the lion is kind of this embodiment of bravery,” she said. “But once they’re on top of this slide, it is actually the lion that is completely afraid.”

As an example, the artist brought up the magic feather in Dumbo, the 1941 Disney animated fantasy film about a circus elephant with far-oversized ears. In the film, Dumbo believes that a feather will allow him to fly.

“He thought it was the thing that made him fly, but actually the feather was a feather all along. And he had it in him,” Meza said. “It’s kind of the same (in As Brave as a Lion). At first, you think that the lion is the thing that is making her brave, or making her able to pretend that she’s brave. But actually she’s been brave all along.”

As Brave as a Lion is Meza’s first book as an author-illustrator. But at one point, there wasn’t a story—not even a lion. Initially, Meza’s watercolor pencil illustration was of a little girl and a huge bear. The artist thought it would be a nice game of contrast. According to Meza, her agent suggested making the bear a lion instead.

So Meza started over.

“And funnily enough, a lot of the stuff that had felt like it was good in the first one, came out better. I think it was because I had already done it once, and I knew what had worked and what hadn’t,” she said. “Then when I repainted it, it kind of became a little bit more free and a little bit more expressive. And I love that.”

Earlier this year, Meza offered a behind-the-scenes look into the making of As Brave as a Lion on Instagram. It took her several years and hurdles to create the book, including when Storm Eunice damaged her original artwork when water flooded her London studio.

““But at the end of the day, if you don’t move and do something about it, then it’s not going to happen because you’re not actually taking action. You’re standing still...””

One of the most intriguing elements to this story is the lion itself. It’s unclear whether the lion is real to others, or if it’s derived from the girl’s imagination. Growing up, Meza said she read a lot of Gabriel García Márquez, and recalled a story by the Colombian author about an angel who appears in a town and is caged. People come from all over to see him. Meza said there was never any kind of explanation by García Márquez of how the angel appeared.

“You never really have to explain the rules of the magic,” she said. “It just is.”

So when it came time to discuss with her editor whether the lion in her picture book was real or not, Meza came to a realization.

“Putting an explanation behind it kind of confined the imagination of the reader, and so I quite like the idea of: ‘It just is.’ The lion just is,” Meza said. “Why should we question that? Why should we put an explanation? And if you want to give it an explanation, then why not make your own? Why not have your own take of how this lion came to be? On that part, I quite like the idea of ambiguity, just to give the reader—both the adult and the child—the space of interpretation.”

Meza said it’s taken her about 30 years to learn what she hopes young readers will take away from As Brave as a Lion.

“We see people and we think, ‘They’re so impressive. How did they manage to do that? How have they gotten to where they are?’” she said.

The author-illustrator said it can be anything from overcoming shyness, to moving to another country, or daring to do something you’re passionate about. And in the case of her character in As Brave as a Lion, it can look like pushing through fear to go down a very tall slide.

“But at the end of the day, if you don’t move and do something about it, then it’s not going to happen because you’re not actually taking action. You’re standing still,” she said. “If you dare, maybe sometimes it’ll backfire and you’ll know that it was a horrible idea. But more often than not, the one thing that you can get is a ‘yes’ or a positive result. So, for me, it would be a matter of just not letting fear control your life, and keep it still and stationary.”

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Erika Meza was born in Mexico, fell in love with animation on the border with California, and developed a taste for eclairs in Paris before moving to the UK to teach at Nottingham Trent University. She is the illustrator of My Two Border Towns by David Bowles, Salsa Lullaby by Jen Arena, and Arthur Wants a Balloon by Elizabeth Gilbert Bedia. She lives in north London.

Amaris Castillo is an award-winning journalist, writer, and the creator of Bodega Stories, a series featuring real stories from the corner store. Her writing has appeared in La Galería Magazine, Aster(ix) Journal, Spanglish Voces, PALABRITAS, Dominican Moms Be Like… (part of the Dominican Writers Association’s #DWACuenticos chapbook series), and most recently Quislaona: A Dominican Fantasy Anthology and Sana, Sana: Latinx Pain and Radical Visions for Healing and Justice. Her short story, “El Don,” was a prize finalist for the 2022 Elizabeth Nunez Caribbean-American Writers’ Prize by the Brooklyn Caribbean Literary Festival. She is a proud member of Latinx in Publishing’s Writers Mentorship Class of 2023 and lives in Florida with her family and dog, Brooklyn.

Book Review: Borderless by Jennifer DeLeon

Borderless, by Jennifer De Leon is a young adult book that explores life in the writer’s South American homeland of Guatemala. The book follows the day-to-day life of Maya, our main character. Maya, a young woman of seventeen, is an inspiring fashion designer who creates unusual fashion out of the unexpected. Maya uses her talent to make her dreams a reality.

Having come from immigrant parents myself, I felt that I was quickly going to relate to the story. However, I was unprepared for the twists and turns that Maya and her mother experienced. The mix of characters within Maya’s retelling of the book’s events gives the overall story interesting layers. The major points in the story are alluded to, but are only revealed when necessary; leaving the reader wishing to know more.

The school that Maya is attending is a very prestigious design school. Maya is entered into a contest, sponsored by the school, that could change her life forever. To complicate matters, her best friend doesn’t make it into the contest. She then meets a boy, and though this should be an exciting time for Maya, it is anything but that. So much happens in this story in such a short span of time, that the reader is left wondering what comes next with each turn of a page. Borderless will have you running alongside Maya and her mother, both whom are just trying to find a home away from gang violence in Guatemala.

“Those who read “Borderless” will find solace and create an intimate connection to Maya and her journey. ”

De Leon has Maya and her supporting characters share some very authentic moments, which build the story up to its climatic events. The reader watches Maya’s life turn upside down. She is no longer able to hide behind her youth or naïveté and is forced to grow up quickly. From her first crush, to her first kiss, and ultimately, her first time witnessing a murder. We see Maya flee from her home with nothing but the clothes on her back, and cross the Rio Grande, which leads her to a detention center and finally to the realization that there are many challenges that she will have to overcome.

As I read Borderless, I started to understand why so many people seek asylum in the United States. The events of the book, at times, only give us a glimpse of the treatment that many people experience when entering the U.S.; enduring dehumanizing situations. These scenes are heart-wrenching. They heavily resemble events that are taking place in today's world; events that are not receiving the attention that they deserve in the media.

Those who read Borderless will find solace and create an intimate connection to Maya and her journey.

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Jennifer De Leon is an author, editor, speaker, and creative writing professor who lives outside of Boston. She is the editor of Wise Latinas: Writers on Higher Education, the 2015-2016 Writer-in-Residence at the Boston Public Library, and a 2016-2017 City of Boston Artist-in-Residence. She is also the second recipient of the We Need Diverse Books grant. She is the author of Don't Ask Me Where I'm From and Borderless.

Angela “Angie” Ybarra is a senior student enrolled in the Nontraditional Degree Program (NDP) at Northeastern Illinois University. She hopes to work as a grant writer to assist local nonprofit organizations that address the issues of gentrification within Chicago's NorthWest side and help them find funding for their work. Angie loves to give her audience the opportunity to formulate their own views by presenting the facts or points of interest with the hope to move her audience into action.

“Journalism is what maintains democracy. It’s the force for progressive social change.” —Andrew Vachss, Author

September 2023 Latinx Releases

ON SALE SEPTEMBER 5

Warrior Girl by Carmen Tafolla | MIDDLE GRADE

Celina and her family are bilingual and follow both Mexican and American traditions. Celina revels in her Mexican heritage, but once she starts school it feels like the world wants her to erase that part of her identity. Fortunately, she’s got an army of family and three fabulous new friends behind her to fight the ignorance. But it’s her Gramma who’s her biggest inspiration, encouraging Celina to build a shield of joy around herself. Because when you’re celebrating, when you find a reason to sing or dance or paint or play or laugh or write, they haven’t taken everything away from you. Of course, it’s not possible to stay in celebration mode when things get dire—like when her dad’s deported and a pandemic hits—but if there is anything Celina’s sure of, it’s that she’ll always live up to her last name: Guerrera—woman warrior—and that she will use her voice and writing talents to show the world it’s a more beautiful place because people like her are in it.

Yaqui Delgado Wants to Kick Your Ass: The Graphic Novel by Meg Medina | Illustrated by Mel Valentine Vargas | GRAPHIC NOVEL

It’s the beginning of sophomore year, and Piedad “Piddy” Sanchez is having a hard time adjusting to her new high school. Things don’t get any easier when Piddy learns that Yaqui Delgado hates her and wants to kick her ass. Piddy doesn’t even know who Yaqui is, never mind what she’s done to piss her off. Rumor has it that Yaqui thinks Piddy is stuck-up, shakes her stuff when she walks, and isn’t Latina enough with her white skin, good grades, and no accent. And Yaqui isn’t kidding around, so Piddy better watch her back. At first, Piddy is more concerned with learning about the father she’s never met, navigating her rocky relationship with her mom, and staying in touch with her best friend, Mitzi. But when the harassment escalates, avoiding Yaqui and her gang takes over Piddy’s life. Is there any way for Piddy to survive without closing herself off from those who care about her—or running away? More relevant than ever a decade after its initial publication, Mel Valentine Vargas’s graphic novel adaptation of Meg Medina’s ultimately empowering story is poised to be discovered by a new generation of readers.

I Love You Mucho Mucho by Rachel Más Davidson | PICTURE BOOK

Rosie is so excited to see her abuela and tell her everything that's been going on—but Abuela doesn't speak English, and Rosie doesn't speak Spanish. They quickly learn over lunch, though, that hunger has no language—and neither does love!

Veo, Veo, I See You by Lulu Delacre | PICTURE BOOK

Marisol’s mami is the best cook at Rosita’s Cafe! But now, the restaurant is closed. A bad virus—too easy to catch in small, crowded places—is going around.

Marisol, Pepito, and Mami still need to go out to bring Mami’s arroz con pollo to housebound Tía Olga and Cousin Johnny. As Marisol and Pepito watch the people working around the neighborhood, who their mother explains have essential work, Marisol thinks of the perfect game to play:

Veo, veo...
¿Qué ves, Marisol?
I spy...a trash collector. Essential work. Those bins were full!

By the time they get home, Marisol has another idea: a way to show the people in her neighborhood that she sees them!

Alma and Her Family/Alma Y Su Familia by Juana Martinez-Neal | PICTURE BOOK

I play with my cousins. / Juego con mis primas.
I sing to Pajarito. / Le canto a Pajarito.

How much does little Alma love her family? She kisses her daddy, squeezes her mommy, laughs with her grandma, and . . . paints on her artist grandpa (such a good sport!). Juana Martinez-Neal’s bilingual board book brings back familiar characters and introduces new ones in a conversational narration (shown in both languages on every spread) as well as gentle illustrations exuding whimsy and warmth.

Alma, Head to Toe /Alma, de Pies a Cabeza by Juana Martinez-Neal | PICTURE BOOK

I have two eyes, one nose, and a mouth. / Tengo dos ojos, una nariz y una boca.
I see you, Pajarito! / ¡Te veo, Pajarito!

Alma is known for her iconic stripes—but there’s more she’d like to show you! She has arms, hands, and fingers for patting a pet bird—as well as legs, feet, toes, and one adorable belly, below her ever-present heart. Juana Martinez-Neal’s bilingual board book teaches body parts while sharing moments in a little girl’s world, in a conversational narration (shown in both languages on every spread) combined with gentle, inviting illustrations.

¡1, 2, 3 Merengue!: English-Spanish Instruments & Sounds Book by Delia Ruiz | Illustrated by Graziela Andrade | PICTURE BOOK

This bilingual English-Spanish book explores merengue instruments and the fun and sometimes silly sounds that they make. The musicians also practice their lefts and rights while marching in the band with friends. Vamonos! Learn about merengue instruments and their sounds in English and Spanish.

Children, caretakers, and educators will love the rhythmic text paired with bright and colorful illustrations showcasing characters of diverse backgrounds and abilities.

¡1, 2, 3 Cumbia!: English-Spanish Manners Book by Delia Ruiz | Illustrated by Graziela Andrade | PICTURE BOOK

This bilingual English-Spanish book teaches common manners through a dance class setting. The dancers also practice consent, learning how to say no and set boundaries with others. ¡Vamonos! Learn to use manners with cumbia in English and Spanish.

Children, caretakers, and educators will love the rhythmic text paired with bright and colorful illustrations showcasing characters of diverse backgrounds and abilities.

¡1, 2, 3 Salsa!: English-Spanish Counting Book Book by Delia Ruiz | Illustrated by Graziela Andrade | PICTURE BOOK

This bilingual English-Spanish book teaches how to count to 10 using salsa. ¡Vamonos! Learn to count with salsa in English and Spanish.

Children, caretakers, and educators will love the rhythmic text paired with bright and colorful illustrations showcasing characters of diverse backgrounds and abilities.

Creep: Accusations and Confessions by Myriam Gurba | ADULT NONFICTION

A creep can be a singular figure, a villain who makes things go bump in the night. Yet creep is also what the fog does—it lurks into place to do its dirty work, muffling screams, obscuring the truth, and providing cover for those prowling within it.

Creep is Myriam Gurba’s informal sociology of creeps, a deep dive into the dark recesses of the toxic traditions that plague the United States and create the abusers who haunt our books, schools, and homes. Through cultural criticism disguised as personal essay, Gurba studies the ways in which oppression is collectively enacted, sustaining ecosystems that unfairly distribute suffering and premature death to our most vulnerable. Yet identifying individual creeps, creepy social groups, and creepy cultures is only half of this book’s project—the other half is examining how we as individuals, communities, and institutions can challenge creeps and rid ourselves of the fog that seeks to blind us.

With her ruthless mind, wry humor, and adventurous style, Gurba implicates everyone from Joan Didion to her former abuser, everything from Mexican stereotypes to the carceral state. Braiding her own history and identity throughout, she argues for a new way of conceptualizing oppression, and she does it with her signature blend of bravado and humility.

ON SALE SEPTEMBER 12

First Gen: A Memoir by Alejandra Campoverdi | ADULT NONFICTION

Alejandra Campoverdi has been a child on welfare, a White House aide to President Obama, a Harvard graduate, a gang member’s girlfriend, and a candidate for U.S. Congress. She’s ridden on Air Force One and in G-rides. She’s been featured in Maxim magazine and had a double mastectomy. Living a life of contradictory extremes often comes with the territory when you’re a “First and Only.” It also comes at a price.

With candor and heart, Alejandra retraces her trajectory as a Mexican American woman raised by an immigrant single mother in Los Angeles. Foregoing the tidy bullet points of her resume and instead shining a light on the spaces between them, what emerges is a powerful testimony that shatters the one-dimensional glossy narrative we are often sold of what it takes to achieve the American Dream. In this timely and revealing reflection, Alejandra draws from her own experiences to name and frame the challenges First and Onlys often face, illuminating a road to truth, healing, and change in the process.

Part memoir, part manifesto, FIRST GEN is a story of generational inheritance, aspiration, and the true meaning of belonging—a gripping journey to “reclaim the parts of ourselves we sacrificed in order to survive.”

fox woman get out! by India Lena González | Foreword by Aracelis Girmay | POETRY

Traveling from the corporeal to the cosmic, from life to death and back again, fox woman get out! is a full-throated performance of humanity in search of truth, ancestry, and artistic authenticity. Moving through themes of lineage, twinship, femininity and masculinity, reclamation of Indigeneity, dance, gender roles, and longing, González’s poems are a crescendo on the page. Part ecstatic elegy, part spell, this is a betwixt poetics, a kaleidoscopic, disruptive, and meditative work.

The Devil of the Provinces by Juan Cárdenas | Translated by Lizzie Davis | ADULT FICTION

When a biologist returns to Colombia after fifteen years abroad, he quickly becomes entangled in the trappings of his past and his increasingly bizarre present: the unsolved murder of his brother, a boarding school where girls give birth to strange creatures, a chance encounter with his irrevocably changed first love. A brush with a well-connected acquaintance leads to a biotechnology job offer, and he’s gradually drawn into a web of conspiracy. Ultimately, he may be destined to remain in the city he’d hoped never to see again―in The Devil of the Provinces, nothing is as it seems.

As Long as You Love Me by Marianna Leal | ADULT FICTION

Catalina Diaz Solis needs just a few things to achieve her dream: her student visa, a full-time job, and to get Gabriel Cabrera out of her head. Since leaving Venezuela after her brother was killed in a political protest, Cata has been working to finish her Engineering degree, and now she’s in line for a full-time job that will allow her to stay in the United States. A major wrinkle in her plans is Gabe, the campus babe. He’s always in Cata’s way, competing for top grades and poised to take the job at their internship.

Gabe seems to have it all; he succeeds without trying and is extremely good-looking. It makes hard-working Cata endlessly frustrated. But when Gabe needs a plus-one for his brother’s wedding, he strikes a deal: Cata will be his fake date, and he’ll step out of the running for the job she desperately needs. As they attend events together, Cata discovers there’s more to her nemesis than she ever imagined. It’s all fun and games until Cata’s visa renewal is rejected, and Gabe complicates things with a new proposal that might either solve all her problems or destroy her dreams. Cata will have to put everything on the line to follow her heart.

ON SALE SEPTEMBER 19

Colorful Mondays: A Bookmobile Spreads Hope in Honduras by Nelson Rodríguez and Leonardo Agustín Montes | Illustrated by Rosana Faría and Carla Tabora | Translated by Lawrence Schimel | PICTURE BOOK

A beautiful, empowering story about the impact of literacy in underprivileged communities, based on a real bookmobile program in Tegucigalpa, Honduras.

Luis’s favorite day of the week is Monday, the day the bookmobile comes to his neighborhood. In Villa Nueva, sad stories can gather like dark, stormy clouds. But at the bookmobile, Luis hears stories that burst with life, laughter, and color. Maybe today will bring a song or a puppet show! He might even get to pick a book to read on his own. Every new Monday fills Luis and his neighbors with a joy they can’t help but bring back home.

Candelaria by Melissa Lozada-Oliva | ADULT FICTION

Your granddaughters are lost, Candelaria. Bianca, the brainy archaeologist, had to forfeit her life's work in Guatemala after her advisor seduced and deserted her. Paola, missing for over a decade, resurfaces in Boston as a brainwashed wellness cultist named Zoe. And Candy, the youngest, is a recovering addict who finds herself pregnant by a man she's not even sure ever existed. None of this concerns you of course, until a cataclysmic earthquake hits Boston. Now you must traverse the crumbling city to reach the Watertown Mall Old Country Buffet—for a reason you still cannot disclose—battling strange entities and your own strange past to save your granddaughters and possibly the world.

A sweeping, mystical novel following three generations of women as they grapple with muddled pasts and predetermined futures, Candelaria is a story of love that eats us alive.

ON SALE SEPTEMBER 26

Undiscovered by Gabriela Wiener | Translated by Julia Sanches | ADULT FICTION

Alone in a museum in Paris, Gabriela Wiener finds herself confronted by her complicated family heritage. Visiting an exhibition of pre-Columbian artifacts, she peers at countless sculptures of Indigenous faces each nearly identical to her own and recognizes herself in them – but the man responsible for pillaging them was her own great-great-grandfather, Austrian colonial explorer Charles Wiener. Wiener’s “grand” contribution to history: the near rediscovery of Machu Picchu, nearly 4,000 plundered artifacts, a book about Peru, and a bastard child.

In the wake of her father's death, Gabriela begins to unpack the legacy that is her birthright. From the brutal racism she encounters in her ancestor Charles's book to her father's infidelity, she traces a cycle of abandonment, jealousy and colonial violence, in turn reframing her own personal struggles with desire, love, and race. As she explores the history of two continents, her investigation brings her closer and closer to the more intimate realm where both colonizer and colonized ultimately converge– the body– and her own desire to free it. Guided by a penetrating eye and fearsome wit, Undiscovered embarks the reader on a quest to pick up the pieces of something shattered long ago in the hopes of making it whole once again.

A British Girl's Guide to Hurricanes and Heartbreak by Laura Taylor Namey | YOUNG ADULT

Winchester, England, has always been home for Flora, but when her mother dies after a long illness, Flora feels untethered. Her family expects her to apply to university and take a larger role in their tea-shop business, but Flora isn’t so sure. More than ever, she’s the chaotic “hurricane” in her household, and she doesn’t always know how to manage her stormy emotions.

So she decides to escape to Miami without telling anyone—especially her longtime friend Gordon Wallace.

But Flora’s tropical change of scenery doesn’t cast away her self-doubt. When it comes to university, she has no idea which passions she should follow. That’s also true in romance. Flora’s summer abroad lands her in the flashbulb world of teen influencer Baz Marín, a Miami Cuban who shares her love for photography. But Flora’s more conflicted than ever when she begins to see future architect Gordon in a new light.

Skyscraper Babies by April Pulley Sayre and Jeff Sayre | Illustrated by Juliet Menéndez | PICTURE BOOK

This perfectly poetic story is an ode to family and nature in the big city. Squirrels and humans alike rush to get from place to place, all returning to their nooks and nests at the end of the day atop skyscrapers, amidst the stars. This gentle text is sure to lull little ones to sleep as well as instill the importance of coexisting with the natural world.

Salsa Magic by Letisha Marrero | MIDDLE GRADE

Thirteen-year-old Maya Beatriz Montenegro Calderon has vivid recurring dreams where she hears the ocean calling her. Mami’s side of the family is known as “Los Locos,” so maybe she actually is going crazy. But no time for that; the family business is where it’s at. Whenever Maya, her sister Salma, and her three cousins, Ini, Mini, and Mo, aren’t at school, you can usually find three generations of Calderones at CaféTaza, serving up sandwiches de pernil, mofongo, and the best cafés con leche in all of Brooklyn.

One day, an unexpected visit from the estranged Titi Yaya from Puerto Rico changes everything. Because Yaya practices santeria, Abuela tells Maya and the other Calderon children are told to stay away from her. But If la viejita is indeed estranged from the family, why does Maya feel so connected to this woman she has never met before? And who is this orisha named Yemaya? On top of figuring all this out, Maya has a budding soccer career to consider, while fending off the local bully, and dealing with nascent feelings toward her teammate. But through it all, there’s that alluring connection to a forbidden ancient practice–filled with a pantheon of Yoruban gods and goddesses–that keeps tugging at her, offering her a new perspective in life, tying her past to her present and future. Which path will Maya choose to fulfill her destiny?

Review and Author Q & A: Infested by Angel Luis Colón

“I can’t remember a time I hated my mother and my stepfather more than the summer before my senior year.”

Anger boils in the opening of Angel Luis Colón’s young adult debut novel, Infested (out now by MTV Books). Manny Rivera is seething over his parents’ decision to uproot him and his baby sister, Grace, from San Antonio to the Bronx. He’s now without friends, without a car, and to make matters worse: he’s been tasked with helping out in his family’s new home—a luxury condo building his stepfather, Al, is managing. Al’s job is to get the Blackrock Glen ready for tenants—and there’s a tight deadline.

One small light in this new gloomy chapter for Manny is a budding friendship with Sasha, an outspoken Afro-Latina who is protesting Blackrock Glen even as she and her family plan to move there. And he meets Mr. Mueller, an exterminator hired to rid the building of roaches, and who seems to take a liking to Manny. Mr. Mueller looks to be in his seventies, with a messy mop of hair and sunken eyes.

As Manny starts to address issues in different apartments throughout Blackrock Glen, he finds cockroaches—“creepy, crawly, little shit-born roaches with twitching antennae and creepy legs.” Then comes the nightmares, followed by more incidents with the insects. And even more sinister, Manny notices that contractors hired to do jobs in the new building are missing.

After some digging, Manny and Sasha come to the paralyzing realization that the Mr. Mueller they see around the neighborhood is no longer alive. He actually died decades ago in a fire, in the same exact location where Manny’s new building is. And it was one that Mr. Mueller himself set.

Colón’s graphic body horror descriptions paired with commentary on themes like gentrification, race and class, make Infested not only a deeply entertaining story, but an important one. Readers new to horror may also get a thrill out of the major ick factor moments in the book. And threaded throughout expertly is food for thought about the navigation of Puerto Rican identity, and one’s place in Latinx culture.

Will Manny be able to save his family from an unhinged ghost determined to repeat history?

On behalf of Latinx in Publishing, I spoke with Colón about the inspiration behind Infested, the horror subgenre of body horror, and more.

“Colón’s graphic body horror descriptions paired with commentary on themes like gentrification, race and class, make “Infested” not only a deeply entertaining story, but an important one.”

This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.

Amaris Castillo (AC): Congratulations on Infested! This is your YA debut novel. What inspired you to tell this story?

Angel Luis Colón (ALC): Initially I had been thinking about YA for a little while. I was coming from the adult crime fiction scene, and I wasn’t getting a lot of fulfillment out of it. I was very hesitant to write about my experience as a Puerto Rican from New York in that space, because of a lot of the negative stigmas that are perpetuated about Puerto Ricans—especially in crime fiction. You see TV, you know, all those things.

So I thought about: How do I write about these things I want to write about, in a different space that maybe is a little safer—that’ll let me explore things? My agent came to me with the news that MTV Books was coming back, and they were looking for ideas. We were having beers, and something just kind of struck me as an idea I wanted to look into. I pitched it to him, and then we pitched it to MTV, and it kind of blew up from there.

At first, it was like an interesting idea, right? But I think YA lets you explore things a little more allegorically. You can kind of go a little crazier. When that clicked, I was like, well, wait a second. There’s a lot of things we can talk about the Puerto Rican experience, at least in New York, and also bridge my upbringing in with it. As most Nuyoricans will know, you’re blanquito growing up. There’s a level of privilege that comes with that. There’s a level of issues that come with it, as well. But I decided I wanted to write a story about that point a white Latino has where you got to decide: Are you going to embrace the privilege? Or are you going to think about your place within your culture, and what role you can play to help it?

AC: Your main character, Manny, starts off feeling like he hates his mother and stepfather for moving their family from Texas to the Bronx, in the summer before his senior year. At first I chalked this up to teen angst, but there are other dynamics at play when it comes to his relationship with his parents. What message were you hoping to send by highlighting this tension between a child and his parents?

ALC: I found an opportunity with that because I thought about my own tensions with my family coming up. It goes back to what it is to be Nuyorican, Puerto Rican. On paper, however you would describe it, I guess I’m third-generation American. Being Puerto Rican makes it funny to describe it like that, right? Because we were made American on paper, and whatever that means, too, but I digress.

But there are very stark differences between generations. And I realized a lot of my own angst came from how much more Americanized I was from my mother, versus how much more Americanized she was from her mother. You think about all these milestones we look at culturally. And, like you said, a senior in high school is so important, right? But really, is it? It’s important because we’ve been told it’s important. And there are reasons for it being important, like college and all that. But to a teen’s mind, they look at it as important because they’ve been told all of their lives. When I thought about all that (older) generation, my mom never cared. That wasn’t something that she had to care about. For her and her generation, senior (year) in high school was the end. There was no college. There was no thought beyond that. You went straight to work. So I wanted to play around with that.

I thought hard about how I had the privilege of being like, ‘Well, this is such a pivotal time in my life. I’m going to have college.’ And the people older than me are like, ‘What are you talking about? You gotta live.’ It helped me with that balance between how his mother and stepfather were just kind of like ‘We’re moving. This is an opportunity. Why are you so upset?’ They don’t grasp it, because, to them, they’re doing the right thing based on where they’re coming. In their minds, providing for family and working are the two most important things. But to Manny, he has had the privilege to be able to have a little more long-term thinking. So for him, he’s like, ‘Well, I hadn’t started yet. What are you talking about?’

AC: Your book definitely has the ick factor by way of body horror. There are moments that had me looking around to make sure there are no roaches near me. What was it like for you to bring this subgenre of horror to a younger audience?

ALC: That was really important to me. I actually thought about that a lot, and I wrote about it recently for CrimeReads. My first horror movie was the 80s remake of The Thing. I was only five years old, and my uncles thought it would be hysterical to show it to us—me and my three cousins. I ran out of the room. I was mortified and just completely traumatized.

I was not a fan of horror until maybe five or six years later, and we saw this movie called The Gate. It was awful, but it made me realize that you can find different types of horror. And then I would go back to the crazier stuff but I realized, when you’re young, that stuff is very scary. I look at my own kids and see how they react to certain things, and I’m like, ‘Oh, OK.’

I wanted to think about it that way—what can I write for somebody who is kind of like a gateway? Isn’t too extreme, but isn’t too nice either. Something that one reader out there will be like, ‘I want to check out some other stuff.’ I got a kick out of that.

AC: When Manny meets Mr. Mueller, the building’s exterminator seems friendly. Manny and his new friend, Sasha, later discovers that Mr. Mueller is a specter who espouses certain beliefs about their Bronx neighborhood. Can you share how you landed on this paranormal aspect while writing the novel?

ALC: Initially I wasn’t going to, but then I felt like that was a little too real. I grew up in the Bronx. I was actually born in Texas—where I pulled the Texas thing for Manny from—but I was only there for a couple years. My parents divorced, and I kind of grew up solo and I was raised by my grandparents and different men throughout my life. A lot of them served as mentors, but also were very entrenched in their way of thinking. So I pulled a lot of that into Mr. Mueller—it’s having this person that you can bond with that is problematic. That was very common when I was growing up in the Bronx, because you have this very weird melting pot of folks. And a lot of the older folks would have incredibly antiquated views, and they were very stuck in their ways.

There was one guy I grew up with, the father of my mother’s best friend. He was an incredibly racist old man. It was a very complicated relationship with him, because he had a charm about him. You can get along with him and he would make you laugh, but then he would say something that was just insane. It was easy for him. It wasn't even awkward. So I wanted to channel into how that hate becomes like an infestation. It’s something that you can’t just scrub out.

At first, we were gonna keep Mueller pretty grounded, but I felt like that was just way too real. And I really wanted to go into the paranormal things. So we decided: How do you create a character that’s allegorical to that, and is kind of like this physical manifestation of that grime that grows on people’s souls? It clicked: We’ll make him make him a ghost, and we can loop in Bronx history into that.

AC: In Infested there’s an added storyline about gentrification, class, and this question of who belongs where. Can you talk about your decision to anchor your book in these themes?

ALC: If you’re not from the Bronx, there’s always a stigma around the Bronx. Growing up, when people would meet me, they’d be like ‘You’re tough. You’ve seen people explode or die.’ Lots of nonsense. And that all stems out of the 70s, when the Bronx was on fire and you had the influx of lots of Latino and Black people that were leaving the island when Harlem was being gentrified, actually. I grew up with that stigma, and at the tail end of the worst times that the Bronx had.

Yeah, I saw some things, but there’s still humanity to the neighborhood. There’s still a very proud culture to it. I think the Bronx had this distinction of having that stigma working for them, in a way that gentrifiers avoided the Bronx. So when Brooklyn was really getting built up, people just ignored the Bronx. Then that changed, and when I’d visit I started seeing new buildings, things were shifting, and rents were going up. And for a while, I kind of deluded myself into thinking ‘Well, we’ll never let this happen. We’re too in here. We’re too strong.’ You can tell yourself that, but money at the end of the day is always going to beat you if you don’t have it to fight back. And I began to see real changes in the neighborhoods I grew up around.

At first you’re like, ‘A new building can’t be a bad thing. New businesses can’t be a bad thing, right?’ But you begin to realize these businesses aren’t meant for the people there. And that’s where the real problem starts. I thought a lot about that, and realizing that the Bronx is changing now. And it’s a bummer to me. Growing up in the neighborhood I grew up in, you don’t want to see what made that neighborhood so special to you change. I always felt like I was a very fortunate person growing up in the Bronx. I was able to be around Latino people, I was able to be around Black folk, Asian folk. It was really cool. And it’s such a bummer to think about that going away. I wanted to really get into that, and I thought it would be an interesting thing to have the main character of the story be part of the problem. Maybe not by choice, but he’s there and he’s living in this building.

AC: What are you hoping young readers take away from Infested?

ALC: When I really got into things, I realized I was putting a book together that I wanted to read at that age. I wanted to write a book for a blanquito who is out there, maybe in the same situation I was at that age and other white Latinos are—where you’re at that impasse. You can embrace your privilege and be the token of a white group, and continue on some weird path. Or you can sit back and begin to think about your culture and what you can do for it, and how you can be a better ally to the Black folks in the Latine culture. They’re consistently written-off people who are part of you as well. And that first step to decolonization. I really was invested in that.

I didn’t want to be another Latin writer who was just playing around in the marginalized space to make white people feel comfortable. That was a big concern of mine, especially thinking about my own privileges. Because, very often, white Latine writers, white Latine performers, and other creators are used, to be tokens—to make that check, where it’s like, ‘We got the representation.’ So I very much wanted to call that out. And I wanted the book to be about colorism and gentrification because of that.

I wanted to push back against those two pieces. The two pieces that I always see are either using us for our pain, or using us as a filler to provide safe stories. It’s tough to navigate, and you never know if you get it quite right. That’s the hard part about it, because it’s complex. But my hope is that readers take that, and that readers like that. I want everyone to be able to see maybe a little of themselves in the story through Sasha, or through someone else like Manny. And see the things that they grew up around, at least represented somehow.

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Angel Luis Colón is a Derringer Award and Anthony Award-nominated author writer of HELL CHOSE ME, the Blacky Jaguar novella series, NO HAPPY ENDINGS, and the short story collection MEAT CITY ON FIRE AND OTHER ASSORTED DEBACLES. His fiction has appeared in multiple web and print publications including Thuglit, Literary Orphans, and Great Jones Street. His debut YA novel, INFESTED, comes out in July 2023. Keep up with him on Twitter via @GoshDarnMyLife.

Amaris Castillo is a journalist, writer, and the creator of Bodega Stories, a series featuring real stories from the corner store. Her writing has appeared in La Galería Magazine, Aster(ix) Journal, Spanglish Voces, PALABRITAS, Dominican Moms Be Like… (part of the Dominican Writers Association’s #DWACuenticos chapbook series), and most recently Quislaona: A Dominican Fantasy Anthology and Sana, Sana: Latinx Pain and Radical Visions for Healing and Justice. Her short story, “El Don,” was a prize finalist for the 2022 Elizabeth Nunez Caribbean-American Writers’ Prize by the Brooklyn Caribbean Literary Festival. She is a proud member of Latinx in Publishing’s Writers Mentorship Class of 2023 and lives in Florida with her family and dog, Brooklyn.

Q & A: Elizabeth Santiago, author of The Moonlit Vine

The Moonlit Vine follows Taina Perez, a young girl who begins a journey of self-discovery when her abuela tells her that she is a direct descendant of Anacaona, a beloved Taino leader. Spurred by a history class project, trouble at school, and unrest in her local community, Taina is lead down a path to find her strength and the magic of her ancestors.

I was given the opportunity to read The Moonlit Vine from debut author Elizabeth Santiago and as someone who is Puerto Rican, I was drawn to this book because of its focus on Puerto rican history and ancestry. This young adult novel touches on many themes like family, culture and feminine power. It was a heart warming story that made my inner child feel seen.

On behalf of Latinx in Publishing, I had the lovely opportunity to ask Elizabeth Santiago some questions about her story. I hope that her answers move you as much as they moved me, and that you find yourself reaching for this incredible book.

“This young adult novel touches on many themes, like family, culture and feminine power. It was a heart warming story that made my inner child feel seen.”

Tereza Lopez (TL): Where did you get the inspiration to write this book? Could you talk a bit about your writing process for your debut novel?

Elizabeth Santiago (ES): I wrote The Moonlit Vine when I was in a doctoral program at Lesley University in Cambridge, MA. I wrote it because after a number of years of researching educational outcomes of Latinx students, I ran up against symptoms and not root causes. Why were some of us struggling in school? For me, it was not a question I could answer without going back to colonialization. I wanted to write about how the past still affects us in present day, yet the doctoral research and dissertation process didn’t give me the freedom I needed to present a more sweeping narrative. The creative part of my soul urged me to write The Moonlit Vine and that story allowed me to present a more complete picture of the challenges some of us have faced in present-day educational systems. Writing this novel awakened a deep desire to tell stories and diminished my desire to be an academic researcher to be honest. While I completed the doctoral program and am proud of what I accomplished, I will always look to storytelling as a way to present a complete picture of reality.

(TL): Mourning, grief, and community are large themes throughout this book for many different characters. Could you touch on what it was like writing those themes? What does community mean for you and how it relates to your book, especially for Juana?

(ES): With The Moonlit Vine, I wanted to represent generational trauma, colonialism, fighting for survival, and how all of those things mix to create a person, a family, a community, and a culture. For me, my story begins with the native people of Haiti, Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico because that’s when certain seeds got planted that have grown into the messy weeds we have today. That’s what The Moonlit Vine is about. The artifacts depicted in the book are symbols of the knowledge they had that got handed down generation after generation. Instead of perpetuating this narrative that the Taíno did not survive, I wanted to present that we are, in fact, still here. Our ancestors knew what they were up against and ensured their survival through the tools they had in their possession.

Much of our culture, traditions and history get passed down from our elders, in particular our abuelas. I have always had a strong connection to the women in my family – the ones I know and the ones that have passed on. It’s hard to explain, but I feel their presence. I feel women, in particular, walking with me through life. I have always felt that and writing The Moonlit Vine gave me the opportunity to express the appreciation, love and awe I have for our ancestors.

I’m so glad you asked about Juana because she was one of my favorite characters to write! She is a compilation of all my Puerto Rican aunties who always showed up ready to act and help. Juana loves her family and her community, and she is much beloved in Puerto Rico where she lives. I have written a complete backstory for Juana and one day I’m going to write a story from her perspective. There’s a bit of Juana in all of us Boricuas!

(TL): Who do you think the ideal reader for this book is? What can readers expect to gain from reading The Moonlit Vine?

(ES): As I wrote this book, parts of me began to heal. I had a better handle on the historical forces and situations that made me, me. I can’t say whether others will walk away feeling the same, but I sincerely hope readers will take away the message of love – love of our ancestors and hope for the future. That communities are better together, and that young people can change the world for the better. I wrote the book as a love letter to Puerto Rico and Puerto Ricans, but I think anyone who is interested in the universal themes of the book will enjoy it.

(TL): I have family from Puerto Rico but was raised in the States, so I did not have access to a lot of Puerto Rican culture growing up. Reading this book was a very magical experience for me and I feel like I learned a lot about Puerto Rico and its ancestral culture. Could you talk about research you did on the generations of strong female ancestors that are mentioned throughout this book?

(ES): Thank you for sharing your experience! A lot of our history hasn’t been documented, so I listened to my mother’s stories and tales from my family who lived on the island. A common thing people say is that Puerto Ricans are made up of Taíno, African, and Spanish ancestry. Growing up I knew a lot about the Spanish and a little less about my African ancestors, but very little to nothing about my Taíno ancestors. And I looked for many years! What is documented comes from early journal writings, letters, and stories shared by Spanish (and other) colonizers—stories that have created the dominant narrative that the Taíno did not survive.

That false narrative has been debunked through the prevalence of DNA testing. (Well, our elders already knew the narrative was false, but science finally caught up). With renewed excitement, I continued to research and learn. I read all I could on the Taíno, and I continued to listen to stories from family members. When I was writing the historical vignettes, I let my imagination fill in the blanks. I was determined to present the Taíno as strategic—a people who understood that genocide was happening and fought in ways that ensured their survival even if not necessarily on their own terms. I thought about all of the wonderful women in my life and how the past is connected to the present. I searched for books that described all these connections, but I couldn’t find a work of fiction or nonfiction that shared what I hoped to understand or express.

At a 1981 speech to the Ohio Arts Council, the late amazing literary genius Toni Morrison said, “If there’s a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.” I took those words seriously, which is what set me on the journey to write The Moonlit Vine. A book to name how vital the Taíno were to not only my survival, but also the survival of my family and many, many others. How much their joy, intelligence, and love continue to shape me and others to the present day. This novel is my way of sharing my deep gratitude and respect for them.

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Elizabeth Santiago grew up in Boston, MA with parents who migrated from San Sebastián, Puerto Rico in the 1960s. The youngest of nine, Elizabeth was entranced by the stories her mother, father, aunts and uncles, and community elders told her. Later, she sought to capture and honor those narratives and share them with the world. She earned a BFA in creative writing from Emerson College, a master’s in education from Harvard University, and a PhD in education studies from Lesley University. She still lives in Boston with her husband Kevin and son Ezekiel, but travels to Puerto Rico as often as she can to feel even closer to her ancestors, culture, and heritage. Find her @liznarratives

Tereza Lopez (she/her) is a recent graduate from Clark University with a double major in English and history. She attended Clark University again in Fall 2021 and obtained a Master’s in communication. When she is not studying, you can find her obsessively reading or taking care of her new kitten.