THE LATINA BOOK CLUB

    The Latina Book Club wishes all our readers  a very Merry Navidad! Remember that books by Latino authors make the greatest gifts. Happy Reading and Happy Holidays!   Read Latino!

The Latina Book Club is pleased to introduce the talented Liz DeJesus.  Born in Puerto Rico, Liz is a novelist and a poet, and has been writing since she was able to hold a pen.   She has published several novels, and has just started a new exciting fantasy series.   Please join me in welcoming her. Q:   Your writing is an “intriguing blend of fiction and fantasy” so I have to ask – Do you believe in magic?  If so, how do you know it’s real? How long have you believed? A:   I do believe in magic. But not the kind that’s described in my books. I don’t think people can control wind and fire or anything like that. I am a very spiritual person and I do believe that there is a very thin veil that divides the real world and the spirit world. I think that if you pay close attention you can see a lot of things, both good and bad. I have believed this my whole entire life. How do I know it’s real? Faith. Simple as that. Q: You wrote in jou...

    The Latina Book Club welcomes author Lilibeth Andre , an artist and a writer. Today, Lilibeth shares with us her fascination with the oral history of Mexico’s legends, and how they inspired her novel, THE LADY OF THE TURQUOISE PENDANT. Q: For THE LADY OF THE TURQUOISE PENDANT, which came first the painting or the book idea? A: The book idea came first. I originally wrote it as a short story. Then in 1999, I began to work on the book, and completed the manuscript in 2002. I created the painting in 2012. I decided to do portraits of the main characters, and that turned into a series of eight paintings to illustrate the book. At first, it was challenging to take characters I created with words and turn them into a 2D image. So I started, as I do with most things, with the hardest character first, the Jaguar Knight. Q: What is the legend of the volcanoes? Was it always a love story? Are these legends recorded anywhere for the next generation? A: The legend ...

It's official!   Las Comadres Para las America , the national Latina organization, will present a day-long conference on October 5, 2013, for Latino writers seeking book publication. This year's keynote speaker is Reyna Grande , a National Book Circle Critics Award finalist and winner of the American Book Award and International Latino Book Award. The Comadres and Compadres Writers Conference will be held at Medgar Evers College , CUNY, Brooklyn. Joining La Comadres as collaborators are AT&T, Scholastic, the National Black Writers Conference, the Center for Black Literature, the Foreign Language Department and the Latino American Association, Adriana Dominguez, and Marcela Landres, with support from the Association of American Publishers. The conference will help attendees navigate the challenges and opportunities specific to Latino writers. Scheduled panels will focus on poetry, marketing/publicity, children's/young adult writing, self-publishing, ficti...