Latinx in Publishing is extraordinarily pleased to introduce you to our inaugural Latinx in Publishing Fellows! In 2021, LxP partnered with Macmillan books to create two fellowships, the first a Publishing Fellowship which pairs an emerging writer and editor with the Flatiron Press Senior Editor, Caroline Bleeke, whom the fellow will remotely shadow across the editorial process for ten months, and a Work-in-Progress Fellowship, which pairs an emerging writer with the stellar editor, Ali Fisher, to move a completed draft of a manuscript through a rigorous editing process. And what better way to introduce you to them than to let them tell you something about their favorite books, the books they love to recommend, and their New Year’s Traditions!
LxP: What book did you read this year that you loved?
Claudia Cardona (Publishing Fellow): A book this year I read that I love is All About Love by bell hooks. I underlined something almost on every page. It was an incredible read.
Ananda Lima (Work-in-Progress Fellow): I was lucky to read many books that I loved this year. One of them was The School for Good Mothers by Jessamine Chan, a story about a mother who is sent to a parent educational camp after being reported to Child Protective Services. It was funny, moving, and scary at the same time, and the writing is wonderful. I also loved The Atmospherians by Alex McElroy, Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters, Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro, and many more. I think that books that made me laugh or that let us experience love, while at the same time trapping some of my sadness and what is messed up and scary in our time into words helped me so much this year.
LxP: What’s a book you always recommend to people to jumpstart the new year or to read for the holidays?
Claudia: I highly recommend starting the year off with some Mary Oliver. Devotions: The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver is a great place to start. Reading her poems full of unabashed vulnerability, optimism, and reflections on the natural world is a great way to start off the year.
Ananda Lima: For the holidays, I usually love recommending books I really enjoyed that year, which this year includes the books above. Same thing for writers, but I combine craft books with books like Counternarratives by John Keene, The book of Disquiet by Fernando Pessoa, The Passion according to G.H., or The Hour of the Star by Clarice Lispector, Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell, just to shake things up!
LxP: Do you have a traditional way you like to celebrate New Years?
Claudia: I never really had a New Year Eve tradition, but back in 2018 I did start the tradition of watching Phantom Thread on New Years Eve. It's the best New Years Eve movie.
Ananda: I specifically love New Year's Day. I like taking a long walk. If possible, I like being near water, a vestige from childhood New Year traditions, where bodies of water are important. In Brazil, we liked going into the water, but given that I will likely be in Chicago, I will just walk next to it.
Claudia Delfina Cardona (she/they) is a poet from San Antonio, Texas. She received her B.A. in English Communication Arts from St. Mary's University and her MFA in Creative Writing from Texas State University. Alongside Laura Valdez, Cardona co-created Chifladazine, an online and print zine for and by creative Latinas across the U.S. and beyond. Chifladazine was featured in Remezcla, Vice, and archived at University of Texas at San Antonio and Austin. During her time at Texas State University, Cardona was the Editorial Fellow at the Center for the Study of the Southwest. She assisted with the editorial production of Texas Books in Review and Southwestern American Literature. Additionally, she was on the inaugural Sandra Cisneros Symposium committee. In 2019, Cardona, Juania Sueños, and Anthony Bradley founded Infrarrealista Review, a literary journal and press for Texan writers. Cardona is also the author of What Remains, winner of the 2020 Host Publications Chapbook Prize.
Ananda Lima’s (she/her) poetry collection Mother/land was the winner of the 2020 Hudson Prize and is forthcoming in 2021 (Black Lawrence Press). She is also the author of the chapbooks Vigil (Get Fresh Books, forthcoming in 2021), Tropicália (Newfound, 2021, winner of the Newfound Prose Prize), Amblyopia (Bull City Press, 2020), and Translation (Paper Nautilus, 2019, winner of the Vella Chapbook Prize). Her work has appeared in The American Poetry Review, Poets.org, Kenyon Review Online, Gulf Coast, The Common, Poet Lore, Poetry Northwest, Pleiades, and elsewhere. She has an MA in Linguistics from UCLA and an MFA in Creative Writing in Fiction from Rutgers University, Newark.
