A big congrats goes out to Cinco Puntos writer Benjamin Sáenz!
YALSA named Sáenz' raw, poetic novel, Last Night I Sang to the Monster as one of the year's Top Ten Best Fiction Titles for Young Adults. The award comes with good reason— Monster is not your everyday YA novel. 17 year-old Zach awakes in residential rehab, with no memory of how he got there. This evocative, honest story doesn't pull any punches when it comes to dealing with addiction, abuse and recovery.
This is a powerful and edifying look into both a tortured psyche and the methods by which it can be healed. —School Library Journal
Zach is eighteen. He is bright and articulate. He’s also an alcoholic, and he’s is in rehab instead of high school, but he doesn’t remember how he got there. He’s not sure he wants to remember. Something bad must have happened. Something really, really bad. Remembering sucks and being alive—well, what’s up with that?
I have it in my head that when we’re born, God writes things down on our hearts. See, on some people’s hearts he writes Happy and on some people’s hearts he writes Sad and on some people’s hearts he writes Crazy on some people’s hearts he writes Genius and on some people’s hearts he writes Angry and on some people’s hearts he writes Winner and on some people’s hearts he writes Loser. It’s all like a game to him. Him. God. And it’s all pretty much random. He takes out his pen and starts writing on our blank hearts. When it came to my turn, he wrote Sad. I don’t like God very much. Apparently he doesn’t like me very much either.
Also, Tim Tingle's story
Saltypie: A Choctaw Journey from Darkness into Light has been named a
Notable Children's Book. Saltypie is a heartfelt story gleaned from Tim's own growing up, and his family's migration from Oklahoma Choctaw country to Pasadena, Texas.
Publisher's Weekly called it a "quietly poetic story about dealing with adversity."
Bee stings on the backside! And that was just the beginning. Tim was about to enter a world of the past, with bullying boys and stones and Indian spirits of long ago. But they were real spirits, real stones, and very real memories…
In this powerful family saga, Choctaw author Tim Tingle tells the story of his family’s move from Oklahoma Choctaw country to Pasadena, Texas. Spanning fifty years, Saltypie describes the problems encountered by his Choctaw grandmother—from her orphan days at an Indian boarding school to hardships encountered in her new home on the Texas Gulf Coast.
Tingle says, “Stories of modern Indian families rarely grace the printed page. Long before I began writing, I knew this story must be told.” Seen through the innocent eyes of a young boy, Saltypie is the story of one family’s efforts to honor the past while struggling to gain a foothold in modern America. More than an Indian story, Saltypie is an American story, of hardships shared and the joy
Daniel Alarcon. Lost City Radio. NY: Harper Collins, 2007.
ISBN: 0060594799 9780060594794 9780060594817 0060594810
Paper: 9781448707690 1448707692
Michael Sedano
Set in an anonymous civil war ravaged country ten years after open warfare ends. A repressive dictatorship punitively in control. Millions of displaced people have lost touch with their loved ones. Norma is the beloved voice of a radio program that reads out
lists of disappeared people then takes call-ins from listeners with similar absences in their own lives. Norma’s soothing voice will be all the consolation most of her audience gets but it’s enough. The occasional reunion invests Norma and the show with magic in the lives of listeners; everyone listens to Norma.
Norma’s persona as the reuniter, the namer of names before the audience, torments the private Norma who carries on her own secret search for her disappeared husband. Names are dangerous, in a regime that keeps enemies lists and monitors the program. Speak a forbidden name and risk arrest and torture. And Norma knows her husband’s name is on the wrong list. So as the names come in from the countryside and mountains, Norma reads them over the air, looking for word, any word, of her life’s love, her Rey.
Rey’s name arrives on a list carried by a child from a distant mountain village. Norma is stunned. She can question someone who knew Rey, who knows of Rey, who can say where Rey went off to, ten years ago when the war ended in a bloody massacre.
When Norma learns Rey is the child’s father it comes with the force of a blunt instrument. Ten years ago when Norma was longing for the absent lover, keeping the home together despite Rey’s frequent absences, he was not on botanical field trips. Instead, her husband had been living with a temporary wife and fathering the now orphaned boy.
Norma’s devotion to Rey’s memory holds Norma in powerful grip, in spite of its painful one-sidedness. Of myriad possible responses to the revelation of Rey’s betrayal, Norma does the right thing by Victor without a thought to consequences. Because the boy is Rey’s son, now Norma will be Victor’s mother.
Norma will never know what readers learn about Rey, but taking a half grown son from the mountains and raising him in the city will keep Norma looking in other directions.
If you haven't yet picked up Daniel Alarcon's Lost City Radio, you can ask Santa to put it in your stocking. There's a hot handful of issues to discuss, so give copies to friends. Is Rey unfeeling, amoral, or is his betrayal of Norma's love something worse? Why do smart, good women like Norma fall for jerks like Rey? Will Norma raise Victor right? And if you want to get "out there," maybe Victor has a brother in some other village Rey hung out in? In Search of Bernabe, anyone?
On-Line Floricanto
1. "On the Border, We Dream" (a poem for Rane Arroyo) by Hextorx Carbajal
2. "Tonight We Catch the Moon" by Hedy Trevino
3. "Ancianos" by Yasmeen Najmi
4. "You Are Never Going to Learn Nothing (Una Promesa del Second Grade) by Diana Joe
5. "Revolution Is the Solution" by David Romero
"On the Border, We Dream (a poem for Rane Arroyo)" by Hextorx Carbajal
On the Border, We Dream (a poem for Rane Arroyo)
Characters of Color
Over at Crossed Genres, "The magazine of science fiction & fantasy with a twist", they're accepting stories of Characters of Color. From their website:
People of color are dramatically underrepresented in speculative fiction. So for our second annual oversized end-of-year issue, we’ve chosen Characters of Color as the theme. All main characters must be characters of color. This applies to both fiction and artwork. We will consider submissions from everyone, regardless of race or ethnicity-–what we’re looking for are characters of color. Everyone is encouraged to submit their work!
The stories do not have to focus on the character’s ethnicity, but it must be clear from the content/context of the story that the MC is a character of color. We are not interested in stereotyped, derogatory or racist caricatures. (This does not mean that you can’t address issues like racism and stereotyping in your stories.
This is a double-sized issue. We’re looking for about 10 stories for the issue! We’re also interested in articles, comics, artwork, reviews, interviews, etc. so long as they’re about the theme. We have our cover art but otherwise we’re open to almost anything. Submissions for Issue 24 accepted until 11:59 pm US EST on September 30.
I'll even help you out with one of my ideas-I'm-never-going-to-use: A black Obama who's really white--and I'm not just talking politically. For more info, go here.
Great news from Daniel Alarcon.
Hi everyone: Second Lives, an excerpt from my novel-in-progress is in this week's issue of The New Yorker. / Un fragmento de la novela que estoy terminando se ha publicado en el New Yorker de esta semana.
I met criollo guitarist Walter Goyburu last week here in Lima, and recorded a few things for La Pelanga. / Conocí al guitarrista criollo Walter Goyburu aquí en Lima la semana pasada. Grabé algo de la conversa para La Pelanga.
abrazos, d
Rio Grande Kitch & Camp
Río Grande Review abre de nuevo su convocatoria para la edicion de otoño de 2010. Esta vez, además de recibir trabajos tanto escritos como visuales de tema libre, abre un dossier temático dedicado al kitsch y al camp. Puedes ver el video siguiendo el link.
Río Grande Review is calling for submissions for its fall 2010 edition. This time, in addition to accepting both written and visual open-themed work in any genre, we’re featuring a thematic dossier dedicated to kitsch and camp. Follow the link and watch the video.
Río Grande Review
University of Texas at El Paso
PMB 671, 500 W. University Ave.
El Paso, Tex.
www.riograndereview.com
[email protected]
www.facebook.com/TheRGR
