Kirkus! “A new collection from a grand dame of Chicana literature” March 23, 2023 – Posted in: recent
Kirkus! “A Grand Dame of Chicana literature!” ¡Sí, señor!
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Kirkus! “A Grand Dame of Chicana literature!” ¡Sí, señor!
Continue readingI’m very much blessed the art is moving out there but even more so that coming in 2023, I’ll have gallery representation. Representation for an artist and/or writer frees us up to continue our work. I end this year starting a new novel for HarperVia, Isabel 2121.
Continue readingThe storm comes and goes, returns. Next time, harder. We don’t even bother
with shelters. We give it new names, each time, further fire and rain.
We mourn.
We start again. It could have been you or me, we say, dying
in public beneath a baton’s blows falling amidst a spray of a sniper’s bullets,
but it wasn’t. We go on.
Disaster has happened to someone else.
–(excerpt) A STORM UPON US
“Publishers’ Weekly, deals of the week: Castillo sells two to HarperOne” Most loving thanks to my new literary agent, Johanna Castillo (Writers House Lit Agency) and the powerhouse Tara Parsons, my new editor at HarperVia. The honor and pleasure is all mine. Now, nose to the grinstone!
Continue readingLatinos comprise 60% COVID-19 cases in CaliforniaTroubles have recently compounded with devastating fires. At the U.S./Mexican border there remains the disgraceful detention of brown children separated from parents who legally sought asylum. We send our hopes for continued surviving and thriving to all in that wonderful state.
Continue readingRecipient of International Latino Book Award in autobiography, LAMBDA award in best bisexual non-fiction. Paloma Negra,” Ana Castillo’s mother sings the day her daughter leaves home, “I don’t know if I should curse you or pray for you.” Growing up as the intellectually spirited daughter of a Mexican Indian immigrant family during the 1970s, Castillo defied convention as a writer and a feminist. A generation later, her mother’s crooning mariachi lyrics resonate once again. Castillo—now an…
Continue reading2006 Independent Publisher Book Award for Story Teller of the Year Reminiscent of the picaresque novel, Watercolor Women / Opaque Men contains episodes that range from the Mexican Revolution to modern-day Chicago and reflects a deep pride in Chicano culture and the hardships immigrants had to endure. “A shape shifting voice and earth shaking figures of her story: …the poetic structure of Castillo’s novel glides smoothly and compellingly in tercets…like some unstoppable force…” — BUY EBOOK “…Ana Castillo…
Continue readingPalma Piedras is forty-two, just divorced, and back in the U.S. after several years in Colombia, where her now ex-husband had tried to make her into a traditional South American wife while he plied the family (drug) trade. The grandmother who raised her while the parents she can’t remember picked produce in Southern California is dead (not that her being alive would have made much of a difference, since their relationship was at best irascible).…
Continue readingThe “I” in these critical essays by novelist, poet, scholar, and activist/curandera Ana Castillo is that of the Mexic-Amerindian woman living in the United States. The essays are addressed to everyone interested in the roots of the colonized woman’s reality. Castillo introduces the term Xicanisma in a passionate call for a politically active, socially committed Chicana feminism. In “A Countryless Woman, ” Castillo outlines the experience of the brown woman in a racist society that…
Continue readingBocaditos: Flash Fictions is Ana Castillo’s first chapbook in many years. Limited to 300 numbered and signed copies, this 40-page chapbook is printed on non-acidic, 80% post-consumer waste recycled paper, with a hand-sewn spine. A die-cut window in the cover reveals a self portrait painted by Ana Castillo. (Oil, mixed media on canvas.) As Ana writes in her Preface: “These are independent stories or excerpts from much longer ones that developed from my solitary life and…
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