THE LATINA BOOK CLUB

The Latina Book Club welcomes Thelma T. Reyna , editor, of the newly published WHEN THE VIRUS CAME CALLING.  It's a heart-wrenching anthology that records the events Americans - and the world! - have been living and struggling with these past seven months.  Some of the stories are hard to read, but all expose the havoc this disease has wrought and, most importantly, the resilience of people who refuse to be defeated.  WHEN THE VIRUS CAME CALLING:  COVID-19 STRIKES AMERICA Thelma T. Reyna, Editor   A ground-breaking anthology of 46 distinguished American contemporary poets and prose writers, written in real time in the first half of the historic, devastating coronavirus COVID-19 invasion of America in 2020. In heart-wrenching, wide-eyed observations, firsthand events, tragedies, and reflections, these top authors document for us the horrors, grief, and heroism of friends, family, neighbors as we watched the disease unfold. Here are moments of hope and togethe...

   Poetry is the language of love, of revenge, of despair, of hope, of the people.   Here is a Top 14 List of Latino poets we should all be reading more of.  Among them we have the FIRST Spanish American Poet to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature, an inaugural poet and two Poet Laureates.  I've tried to find websites for all the poets and, where there isn't any, I've posted a link where you could get more information on them.   Happy reading! --mcf TOP LATINO POETS Gabriela Mistral 1.     Gabriela Mistral (First Spanish American to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature) "Song of Death," http://www.poemhunter.com/gabriela-mistral 2.     Pablo Neruda, "Cantos Ceremoniales," http://www.fundacionneruda.org/en 3.     Julia de Burgos, "Rio Grande de Loiza," http://www.juliadeburgos.org 4.     Richard Blanco (Fifth Inaugural Poet of the U.S.), "For All Of Us, One Day...

It was standing room only last night at the 15th Annual International Latino Book Awards sponsored by Latino Literacy Now and held at the Instituto Cervantes in New York City during BookExpo America.  Actor Toni Plana was the Master of Ceremonies.   There were 190 winners!  Some of the night's most notable winners included: Sandra Ramos O'Briant whose THE SANDOVAL SISTERS' SECRET OF OLD BLOOD took first place in Best Novel, Historical Fiction-English and Best First Book, Fiction. Another double winner was Carmen Tafolla's REBOZOS for Best Poetry Book-Bilingual and Best Arts Book-Bilingual. Reyna Grande's THE DISTANCE BETWEEN US won for Best Latino Focused Nonfiction Book. Cecilia Velastegui's MISSING IN MACHU PICCHU won for Best Novel, Adventure or Drama. Melinda Palacio's HOW FIRE IS A STORY, WAITING won for Best Poetry Book - One Author, English. and Founder of Las Comadres Para Las Americas Nora Comstock's  COUNT ON ME: TALE...

Winner of The Mariposa Award for Best First Book at the 2012 International Latino Book Awards OCOTILLO DREAMS by Melinda Palacio Bilingual Review Press, 2011 Set in Chandler, Arizona, during the city's infamous 1997 migrant sweeps, OCOTILLO DREAMS resonates with today's immigration policies.   But this book is not only about politics and immigration.  This book is about mothers and daughters, love and hate, trust and betrayal, life and death.   ABOUT THE AUTHOR:   M elinda Palacio is an award-winning poet and author from South-Central Los Angeles.   She is a former journalist turned writer -- fiction and poetry.   Melinda studied Comparative Literature at UC Berkeley and earned a graduate degree in the same field at UC Santa Cruz. She is a 2007 PEN USA Emerging Voices Rosenthal Fellow and an alum of the Squaw Valley Community of Writers. In 2009, she won Kulupi Press' Sense of Place 2009 competition for her poetry chapbook, Folsom Lo...