THE LATINA BOOK CLUB

    The Latina Book Club congratulates ALL the Winners and Finalists of the 2015 International Latino Book Awards . The Awards are produced annually by Latino Literacy Now, and were presented on Saturday, June 27 th , at the San Francisco Marriott Marquis Hotel during this year’s American Library Association's Annual Conference. 2015 ILBA Winners, Finalists and Presenters I was happy to be part of the Las Comadres Para Las Americas Team that helped present the awards, and especially proud to be able to present the Best Young Adult eBook Award to my friend author Dania Ramos for WHO’S JU? (Northampton House Press).  It was a spectacular evening, complete with a special salute to past award winning author Juan Felipe Herrera, who was named U.S. Poet Laureate by the Library of Congress.  He is the first Latino to hold this honored position in 78 years. Other notable winners included: MICAELA by Adalucia (Cholito Prints and Publishing Company) which

    Vintage International “For men it is just a ‘stupid mistake.’ For women, it feels like a spiritual crime against all those who surround her with affection and support her as a mother and wife.” —Linda "Today I am a woman torn between the terror that everything might change and the equal terror that everything might carry on exactly the same for the rest of my days.” – Linda Paulo Coelho’s new book, ADULTERY (or ADULTERIA in Spanish) is out now.  The title seems to tell the whole story – a bored housewife who has an affair  –  but does it really?   Look at the two quotes above.  They are at the very heart of our protagonist's angst. Linda has a grand life that many would envy.  She has money, a good husband, two kids, an exciting job as a journalist, servants and lives in beautiful Switzerland. She has it all, don’t you think? That’s what Coelho wants the reader to do—Think.  He wants us to see behind the trappings of her life, pass her sexuali

    The Latina Book Club is pleased to welcome author Susan X. Bradley -- a Latina Nancy Drew --   who has written a fun mystery series staring a Latina teen heroine.   Happy Reading! WRITING TIP :   Read, read, then read some more. Writers must be readers. Know your genre and the formula the reader expects. -- S.X. Bradley Q:   What does the X stand for?  And how does a Mexican-American from South Texas end up in Ohio? A: The X is because I don’t have a middle name. For all my computer log-ins at work, they used to use your middle initial for your log-in name. Since I didn’t have one, they used an X, and I liked it. As for living in Ohio, I moved to be closer to my sister. She had two new babies, so I wanted to be closer to my nieces and sister. Q:   Your love of mysteries started at an early age. Can you remember what got you interested in mysteries? Do you remember when you created your first one? A:   I owe my love for mysteries to Nancy Drew.  

   The Latina Book Club congratulates Eddie H. Cisneros on realizing his dream of becoming a published author.   We are happy for the chance to chat with him about his writing and his debut novel, HIS-PANIC, our selection for June's Book of the Month. Q:     You are a writer who works as a doorman. Tell us about yourself, your family and when you knew your passion was writing?   EDDIE:   I am employed as a doorman. This month, will mark 21 years at the same position in the same building. I currently reside in Queens with my wife, two kids and my super, super pal, our dog. I've been writing for quite some time. I've had a passion for writing going back to when I was really young. It was just something I enjoyed doing, the entire thought process and the creativity bundled with a vivid imagination I guess. Growing up, I really enjoyed watching movies and would even try and write scripts for movies that my friends and I had in our minds to film in our neighborhood. In