The Library of Broken Worlds came out this past June, and I was deeply gratified by all the support and love I received at the incredible Octavia’s Bookshelf in Pasadena, California, where I had my book launch. Thank you so much to Brandy Colbert for such excellent (and healing!) conversation and the whole Octavia’s Bookshelf team, who have made such a beautiful, welcoming space for Black books and Black voices. It was a joy to see friends, old and new, and to celebrate the launch of a book that I truly love and am proud of.
I’ve now returned home to my beloved cerro, and I’m in the process of centering myself in my work again, and figuring out what I want my career to look like from now on. I probably won’t have a ton of news to post here, but one of my big plans is to ramp up my substack, A Stranger Comes Home, so please subscribe there if you’d like to read some of my essays about life as a writer and immigrant in rural Mexico. Between the pandemic, ever-rising global inequality, and demographic shifts, the publishing industry has changed and we writers have to figure out how to adapt ourselves with it. I feel more like a whale of writer than a squid, unfortunately. It’s going to take me some energy to figure out where to go from here, but I know that I will. I hope that you, whoever you are, will be interested to go in these new directions with me.
Abrazos,
Alaya
