Omicron Isn’t the New Year Headline

Hopeful New Year, visitor.  Thanks for checking in.

While Omicron hit our household as it did with countless others over the holidays

Ana Castillo. Jan.2022

it isn’t the lead story in this writer’s life.

 

I’m heading close to the finish line on my next book: Doña Cleanwell Leaves Home.  It is a collection of short stories, scheduled for publication in 2023. 

Feminism is alive and well, women’s rights are human rights.  These stories are set in recent decades past as women navigated through society to establish their own lives.

This summer I plan to return to a project I started a few years ago, a novel as described in the HarperVia announcement in Publishers Weekly above.

The year started with a lovely publication in Turkey that requested one of my art pieces for its cover.  The lit journal also translated a couple of the new poems in my 2021 publication, MY BOOK OF THE DEAD. My thanks to Aycan Gürlüyer for reaching out with the request.

The year ended with wonderful news from my hometown Chicago.  I am being honored this coming spring by the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame.  (Please see brief bio.). Going to Chicago in early spring is one of the few in-person appearances I’ll be making this year due to the pandemic.  Another, confirmed, will be April 19th at Sacramento State University.  (More to come as details unfold.)

Last fall I was so grateful to have a new collection of poems released (High Road Books; UNMP) and to be able to share my thoughts and reflections about the current state of the planet.

Thank you, Hip.Latina for listing My BOOK OF THE DEAD on this roundup.

 

11 of the Best Books by Latinas of 2021 You Need to Read

On April 16th I’ve accepted to give the keynote address virtually to the New Mexico State Poetry Society Convention.  As announcements and details are sent my way I post on my social media pages, please check in with me on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

I’m certain I’ve been remiss with posting some of the activities related to my writing and publishing here.

For the record, I ended my decade long public writing workshop service in 2019.  However, I made the exception last fall, a dreadfuly isolating year for so many, and held a virtual writing workshop for the Latina50 Plus organization based in the Bronx, NY.  As a 50+ I’ve learned in life that there are always exceptions and at times, exceptions may be good ones for good reasons. This was one.

Latina50Plus, like the Guild Complex in Chicago is one of the many community based organizations that I personally feel grateful to as a writer and am always honored to support how I can.

Despite mostly living in a pod like countless of others today, days are busy and I don’t post here or in general, as much as I’d like to.

Mostly I am grateful at the start of 2022 that my writing voice fully returned with the poetry collection in 2020 was back to fiction.

 

Sharpie, mixed media on paper by Ana Castillo

Listen in!

https://www.tpr.org/podcast/book-public

 

 

 

 

Thank you to the brilliant artist & critic Mia Funk for including me in this Vimeo for the Creative Process:

https://www.facebook.com/miafunkartist/posts/1861248820931362

Yes, the environmental crisis is the story of the century.  In my poems included in the new poetry I’ve touched on my concerns for the planet.  Discussion and action are required urgently.