Houston, TX— Generaciones de niños hispanos en escuelas de Estados Unidos se relacionan con libros que no reflejan su cultura ni su herencia. En 2019, según el Cooperative Children’s Book Center, solo 225 de 4.029 libros infantiles publicados fueron escritos por autores latinos; solo 235 de ellos sobre latinos. En un esfuerzo por saldar esa deuda, Arte Público Press está aceptando manuscritos para libros infantiles a ser considerados para el Salinas de Alba Award for Latino Children’s Literature. Este reconocimiento busca atender la necesidad de materiales de lectura bilingüe que sean más relevantes culturalmente para niños hispanos, y para ello invita a más escritores a crear contenido para este público en crecimiento. El premio se entregará anualmente al autor de un manuscrito para libro ilustrado infantil. Los manuscritos pueden ser enviados a lo largo del año. El ganador o ganadora recibirá $5.000 en efectivo además de la edición de su …
J. Bret Maney
J. Bret Maney joined the Lehman faculty in 2015 as an assistant professor of English. He is a literary scholar and translator whose research and teaching focus on nineteenth- and twentieth-century American literature and culture, the digital humanities, and the practice and theory of translation. His literary scholarship has appeared or is forthcoming in CENTRO: Journal of the Center for Puerto Rican Studies, Studies in American Naturalism,the Journal of Modern Literature, Kairos: A Journal of Rhetoric, Technology, and Pedagogy,and The Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia. In the field of translation studies, Maney is the translator and co-editor of a bilingual scholarly edition of Guillermo Cotto-Thorner’s Manhattan Tropics/Trópico en Manhattan, the first novel about the Puerto Rican mass migration to New York City (Arte Público, 2019). He has published other literary translations from the French and Spanish in journals such as Asymptote, Exchanges, Small Axe, Gulf Coast, Lunch Ticket, and The Brooklyn Rail. He is a past …
José M. Hernández
José M. Hernández, in 2004, became the first migrant farmworker to become a NASA astronaut. An impressive achievement in itself, José’s accomplishment is even more amazing in light of the journey he took to get there. Born into a migrant farm-working family from Mexico, José didn’t learn English until he was twelve years old. He spent much of his childhood on what he calls the “California circuit,” travelling with his family from Mexico to California’s southern San Joaquin Valley each March, then working northward to the Stockton area by summer, picking strawberries, cucumbers, cherries and tomatoes along the way. In late November, they would return to Mexico for Christmas and wait until March to start the cycle all over again. In California, José spent weekends laboring in the fields with his family, and while the end of the school year meant summer fun for his peers, it meant working seven …
Yolanda Gallardo
YOLANDA GALLARDO is a poet, playwright and novelist born in the Bronx to parents of Cuban and Venezuelan/Puerto Rican heritage. Her play, Everybody Knows My Business, has been performed in Puerto Rico and optioned for Off Broadway. She’s the author of a digital poetry collection, The Fragile Thread (Word Wrangler Press), and her poems have been published in journals including Long Shot Magazine and Chiricú Journal. The Glass Eye (Arte Público Press, 2019) is her debut novel. She lives and works in Bronxville, New York.
Spooky Stories for October
Are you looking for some chilling tales to read before bedtime this October? We’ve gathered up a collection of creepy cuentos that will give you goosebumps and send shivers down your spine (Arte Público is not responsible for any scary dreams)! Brujas, lechuzas y espantos / Witches, Owls and Spooks In this bilingual collection of five stories, Don Cecilio tells the neighborhood children stories that make their hair stand on end. “In my barrio they told the story…” and so his cuento would begin. In “The Owl and the Bundle,” young Tomás disappears without a trace. Distraught, his parents and siblings look for him everywhere with no luck. Upon returning home, his father sees something curious, an owl flying above the house carrying a bundle with its talons. “Is it possible,” he wonders, “that the bundle is Little Tomás?” Could the owl have taken their precious son? Based on oral tradition, these stories …
Reading Goals for 2015
We were inspired by Popsugar and Book Riot’s 2015 Reading Challenges, and decided to create our own recommendations for 2015. Use a website like Goodreads to keep track of what you’ve read. Happy reading! A book written by someone when they were under the age of 25 – Fat No More: A Teenager’s Victory over Obesity; Hispanic, Female and Young: An Anthology; Windows into My World: Latino Youth Write Their Lives A book written by someone when they were over the age of 65 – Klail City / Klail City y sus alrededores A collection of short stories – A Matter of Pride and Other Stories; African Passions and Other Stories; Chicano Chicanery; The Jackets A book published by an indie press – Any of our books! Recent titles include: Bendición; The Skull of Pancho Villa and Other Stories A book by or about someone that identifies as LGBTQ – Desert Blood: The Juárez Murders; Arturo Islas: The Uncollected Works; Tommy Stands Tall A book that is by or about someone …
Libros Cubanos
If the new diplomatic dialogue between the US and Cuba has you curious about Cuban culture, consider reading some of these books! Below, we’ve compiled some titles by Cuban authors, about Cubans, with a particular emphasis on memoir and poetry. Little Havana Blues: A Cuban-American Literature Anthology Edited by Virgil Suárez and Delia Poey Little Havana Blues is a medley of voices—narrators, essayists and poets—that have come to forge a literary identity within the United States since their parents left Cuba to go into exile. However, this first comprehensive anthology of Cuban-American literature is not a symphony of the exile or immigrant generation and its letters. Instead, these writers are staking their claim on part of the American mosaic, with Pulitzer Prices and other awards in hand. But in their Americanization they are not rejecting their heritage or their Hispanic culture; rather they are Cubanizing, tropicalizing, expanding the realm of American …
The Cucuy Strikes Again!
Spelile Rivas’ monster children’s book named finalist HOUSTON, TX August 2014—The Cucuy Stole My Cascarones / El Cucuy me robó los cascarones by Spelile Rivas and illustrated by Valeria Cervantes has been chosen as a finalist in the 2014 Killer Nashville Silver Falchion Awards. These awards seek to honor the best books readily available to a North American audience in any format within the past year. Killer Nashville Writers’ Conference was founded in 2006 by writer and filmmaker Clay Stafford. Since then, it has developed a reputation as a leading advocate for writers and readers of all genres. In this bilingual picture book, an imaginative boy overcomes his fears as he searches for his missing confetti eggs. Roberto and his mother made thirty dozen confetti-filled eggs for his birthday party. Roberto can’t wait to crack the hollowed, painted and confetti-stuffed eggs over his friends’ heads. But, when he goes to …
The Patchwork Garden Included in RIF’s Multicultural Collection!
HOUSTON, TX January, 2014—The Patchwork Garden / Pedacitos de huerto by Diane de Anda with illustrations by Oksana Kemarskaya has been chosen for inclusion in Reading Is Fundamental’s (RIF) 2013-14 Multicultural Collection of Children’s Literature. Containing only 40 titles, RIF’s Multicultural Collection is sponsored by Macy’s and consists of books focused on science, technology, engineering, the arts, and mathematics (STEAM). Reading Is Fundamental prepares and motivates children to read by delivering free books and literacy resources to those children and families who need them most. During this year, RIF will distribute collections to schools and other organizations across the country, with a focus on reaching at-risk and underserved children. In author Diane de Anda’s colorful picture book, a young girl inspires her neighbors to create community gardens full of delicious vegetables. According to Kirkus Reviews, “its positive message of collaboration and cooperation is enhanced by gouache paintings that cheerily depict a …
