THE LATINA BOOK CLUB

NEWS!  Aya de Leon is coming to New York City. Book Launch Party on Wednesday, May 31, 6-8pm at Sisters Uptown Bookstore & Cultural Center, 1942 Amsterdam Avenue at West 156 Street All welcome.     Dafina Books THE BOSS is book two in Aya de Leon’s Justice Hustlers series, but it stands alone. Our street-smart heroine, Tyesha Couvillier, takes on takes on pimps, mobsters, drug pins and bad boy rappers in this sexy, scandalous and suspenseful sequel to UPTOWN THIEF.  De Leon has created memorable characters in a complex, fast paced, heart stopping novel that will grab readers front the first page to the last. SUMMARY:  Tyesha is an ex-stripper, ex-thief turned sex worker advocate, who pulled herself out of the slums of Chicago and strip clubs of New York to become executive director of a woman’s health crisis center.  She is on top of the world, but one fateful act brings everything crashing down, and has her dodging bull...

When you live a rich life You feel Empowered, Self-reliant, Self-actualized, And Free. –Nely Galán Spiegel & Grau Inspiring. Empowering. Every woman should read this book--- from woman driving Uber to pay for her college education, to the Mom needing to support her kids, to the woman looking to get back into the job market, to the woman looking to make a change. SELF MADE: Becoming Empowered, Self-Reliant, and Rich in Every Way by Nely Galán challenges you to look deep within yourself and dares you to be better.  But this is not just a tell-don’t-show book. Nely has filled her book with exercises and charts that readers can ponder and complete at their own pace.  There are also wonderful portraits of other Latinas who have changed their lives and become self-made like Kathy Cano-Murillo (The Crafty Chica), Melissa Paz, Maria Villar and Monica Maldonado. Nely boldly proclaims that Self-Made is a Movement for something, not against it....

       Poetry is like a song, like a psalm, like a prayer. Poetry is different things to many people, and April being Poetry Month, The  Latina Book Club  has been celebrating and spotlighting poets all month long. We are happy to end the month with a brilliant and stupendous poetry collection by the legendary  Margarita Engle , poet, writer and multiple Pura Belpre award winner.  Margarita Engle’s collection is rightly named, BRAVO! POEMS ABOUT AMAZING HISPANICS.  The applause for this collection is endless. She honors the best and the brightest Latino stars. The subjects come from different lands, different professions, but all their poems share a richness that makes us proud to be Latino too.  And many thanks to artist Rafael Lopez who illustrated the books. His drawings are a great compliment to Engle’s poems.   SUMMARY:   Musician, botanist, baseball player, pilot―the Latinos featured in t...

       Poetry is like a song, like a psalm, like a prayer. Poetry is different things to many people, and April being Poetry Month, The  Latina Book Club  is celebrating by featuring Latino poets all month long. Welcome Dr. Maria Alma González Pérez , whose new collection of Spanish poetry evokes feelings of love, community and survival. Vivamos la realidad de nuestra sangre que nos da nuestra identidad. ---Dr. Maria Alma González Pérez     Dr. Maria Alma González Pérez has written a beautiful collection of poems in Spanish entitled CANTOS DEL ALMA Y DEL CORAZON.  It’s an emotional assortment of 50 poems to celebrate love, love of her parents, love of family, and love of her culture.  We especially loved her poem, Vivamos La Realidad , which translates roughly into Living the Truth . In it she proclaims that it is the blood of the people that carries the truth of their race and the truth of their i...

   Poetry is like a song, like a psalm, like a prayer. Poetry is different things to many people, and April being Poetry Month, The  Latina Book Club  is celebrating by featuring Latino poets all week long. We welcome to our site poet Ariel Francisco , whom we thank for sharing his poem with us.            A VIEW OF THE STATUE OF LIBERTY FROM THE BROOKLYN BRIDGE Locks cling to the bridge’s facade like piercings, inscribed with names in marker or lipstick. Their keys sunken to the bottom of the East River, combinations lost in the brackish waters of memory. A man in a black trench coat sells the locks to passing couples, encourages them to latch their hearts onto the bridge that’s already heavy with rust.  Way out on the jilted water: the silhouette of a dream-sized woman standing on a distant corner looks so familiar from this far away– arm raised to hail a cab that will never com...

Poetry is like a song, like a psalm, like a prayer. Poetry is different things to many people, and April being Poetry Month, The   Latina Book Club   is celebrating by featuring Latino poets all week long. We welcome to our site former Poet Laureate Thelma T. Reyna ,  who has graciously shared with us an autobiographical poem, a glimpse from her childhood. GROWING UP DUSTY IN A SMALL TEXAS TOWN Our ankles were always gray, caliche dust swirling like guardian angels around twiggy brown legs leaping potholes, tripping on dirt clods. Nine children oblivious to what it meant to be growing up dusty. In winter, rivers of mud separated us from Licha, Juan, Susie. Dripping mesquite trees beckoned. Black puddles dotted our ‘hoodscape far as child eyes could see, little lakes navigated house to house as we grew up dusty. When morning light tickled our bedfaces, dervishes danced through cracks and chinks in sills and walls and f...

Poetry is like a song, like a psalm, like a prayer. Poetry is different things to many people, and April being Poetry Month, The Latina Book Club is celebrating by featuring Latino poets all week long. We welcome A.B. Lugo , poet and playwright, who makes a very personal and emotional debut with  Spanish Coffee: Black, No Sugar from La Casita Grande. La Casita Grande, May 2017 SUMMARY:  In 2015, A.B. Lugo, award winning actor and playwright, suffered through the deaths of his parents only months apart. To cope with his grief, he dedicated himself to writing a poem for each week of 2016. Little did he know he would be chronicling an historic year, one of social strife and tragedy that would culminate in the election of a man whose movement brings new awareness and fear to A.B. as an Afro-Puerto Rican. Spanish Coffee: Black, No Sugar , much like its title, is a bitter experience, as life can be, but also one that gives us the energy and power to ma...