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Anna Lapera 🇬🇹🇵🇭✏️

@annalaperawriter

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Guatemala-born, award-winning, school-teaching, girl-raising author.
BIRDSONG IN THE LONG NIGHT ~ coming 2028
MANI SEMILLA FINDS HER QUETZAL VOICE

POSTS STORIES REELS TAGGED

Team MANI just became Team RAYO

Book deal no.2 is official.

1978 Guatemala City. Meet Rayo: typing champion and budding journalist. Stumbles into clandestine underground activist networks. There are infiltrators. There are mystical and real vultures that ferry souls. There are scary AF uncles, and complicated mothers. And nothing is what it seems.
Coming out in 2028 by @levinequerido

I’m sorry it has taken me so long.
Actually, I’m not sorry. This story needed the 5 years I have spent writing it, and the 30 years since I first thought of it—the first time I saw my mother’s trophy as Guatemala’s 15-year-old reigning typing champion of La Selección Juvenil. (Don’t bother looking up these competitions—they exist only in photographs and records and stories)

PSA: My mother would like everyone to know that this is puro ficción.

So many people to thank who have been a part of making my writing life and this story possible. That is another post for another time.

#bookdeal #yalit #fiction #centralamericanliterature #latinewriters by @annalaperawriter

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6 months ago

I found out last night that MANI SEMILLA FINDS HER QUETZAL VOICE is a FINALIST for the Jane Adamms Peace Award ❤️❤️❤️

Thank you @janeaddamspeaceassociation for recognizing my book and believing in its ability to engage young people in conversations about social justice, peace and equity! It is truly exactly what I’ve ever wanted for this book.

I wrote this story with a feirce social justice mission at heart, both in thinking about what it could spark in thinking about bodily autonomy, and about Guatemala.

Maní is a 12yo girl tired and silent amidst the rampant culture of sexual harassment at her middle school. Until she discovers a secret about her Guatemalan family’s activist past, propelling her to look for answers and inspiration in the work of her disappeared feminist journalist aunt, who wrote during the later years of Guatemala’s 36-year civil war.

I don’t remember learning much about Central America, or Guatemala in school. So it means so much to me that this recognition will give young people of all backgrounds access to diverse Guatemalan stories, and inspire them to want to learn more.

And what is equally special? The beautiful titles we are in company with. Check out these finalists!!!

#guatemala #guatemalanauthor #write #bookstagram #mglit #kidlit #author #centralamericanstudies #teachersofinstagram #book #2024debut #latinxauthors #read #chapina #socialjustice #feministliterature #lasmusas by @annalaperawriter

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2 years ago

I love you, New York.
I love you, librarians.

#publiclibrary #bestof2024 #kidlit #middlegradelit #bookstagram #book #fiction #teachersofinstagram #librariansofinstagram #ilovelibraries #2024debut #latinxwriters #filipinawriters #representationmatters #manisemillafindsherquetzalvoice #guatemala #chapina #centralamericanstudies by @annalaperawriter

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2 years ago

Join us!

Claudia Castro Luna with Anna Lapera: The Flowers Along The Way

Friday october 16 at 6pm
Join us at Bird in Hand to hear about Claudia Castro Luna’s The Flowers Along The Way (Northwestern University Press, September 15, 2026), a first-of-its-kind memoir in English about girlhood during the Salvadoran Civil War.

In The Flowers Along the Way, Castro Luna is a girl trying on a pair of high-heeled sandals hoping some of her neighbor’s glamour will rub off on her, while living with the understanding that an army convoy, a military jeep, or la Policia Nacional, might kill her.

We’re thrilled that Anna Lapena, author of Mani Semilla Finds Her Quetzal Voice, will join Claudia Castro Luna in conversation.

We hope you can join us!

https://www.birdinhandcafe.com/events

#claudiacastroluna #theflowersalongtheway #birdinhandandbooks by @annalaperawriter

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a day ago

Beautiful rainy weekend celebrating the 2nd Liwanag Filipino Lit Fest DC!!! @liwanaglitfestdc hosted by @loyaltybooks 💕

Filled with books, tats, earrings, food, and beautiful community

And @celestedador you are a star!!! ⭐️ by @annalaperawriter

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12 days ago

Join me & the Consulate of Guatemala at the Hyattsville Library on October 1st, to celebrate Guatemala’s “Día del Niño” with a short reading of MANI SEMILLA ENCUENTRA SU VOZ DE QUETZAL! (Beautiful translation by Excy Guardado).

Watch live on the consulate’s Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/consmarylandgt
or stop by the library’s children’s area!

Thursday, October 1
4:30-5pm

#ilovelibraries #library #guatemalan #centralamericanliterature #latineheritagemonth by @annalaperawriter

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17 days ago

📣Baltimore friends!

Please join me at Bird in Hand Coffee & Books on October 16th, as I speak with poet and incredible human Claudia Castro Luna, about her new memoir, The Flowers Along the Way, about girlhood during the Salvadoran civil war.

📍Bird in Hand Coffee & Books
11 East 33rd Street
Baltimore, MD 21218

Friday, October 16
6pm

Reserve your spot: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/claudia-castro-luna-with-anna-lapera-the-flowers-along-the-way-tickets-2000281807733
(see link in story) by @annalaperawriter

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20 days ago

I love talking Central American Literary things with these beautiful writer people 💕

Thank you @teach_change for all the important work you do & trusting me to moderate this important convo, and thank you @johnmanuelarias, @jaredilemus, @bydianarojas & @aprodrig77 for these amazing books you have written that tell the wildest and most intimate stories and showcase the diversity and range of what a central american narrative is and can be.

Thank you to all who came out, and special shoutout to @tintas.dc members in the house 🎉

And of course, thank you Busboys & Poets for hosting 💕

#latineheritagemonth #centralamericanliterature #books by @annalaperawriter

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21 days ago

Celebrated turning in my second book by rolling up to the Latin American Film Festival at @afisilvertheatre to see CORDILLERA DE FUEGO by @jayrobustamante ❤️

It was so beautifully made and tense. Everyone should watch it.

Thank you, @awensouthern for being my yearly film festval date all these years.

#guatemalan #afi #latinamericanfilm by @annalaperawriter

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25 days ago

I turned in a full draft today. by @annalaperawriter

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a month ago

📣 SEPTEMBER 23!!!

These authors will have me out on a school night, so you know it’s going to be good!!!

Join myself and @teach_change on Sept 23 at Busboys and Poets (14th st) for readings, conversation & book signings with @johnmanuelarias , @aprodrig77 , @bydianarojas & @jaredilemus . A chance to sit together, listen, and celebrate Central American stories as a community!

RSVP: https://bit.ly/CCAV26

#busboysandpoets #DCAESJ #DCareaEducators #TeachCentralAmerica #centralamericanliterature by @annalaperawriter

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a month ago

✨Now that it is August I can say that NEXT MONTH I get to moderate a convo with these STARS✨

Join me and @teach_change on September 23rd at the Busboys & Poets on 14th st for the now annual Contemporary Central American Voices night, where I’ll be talking to @jaredilemus, @bydianarojas, @johnmanuelarias & @aprodrig77 about their new books, their selves, all things Central American-ness, y más.
The topics are deep, but as always, I promise to make you laugh, because we, like our stories, are a little bit of everything.

You have a little over one month to read their books!!!

#books #centralamericanliterature #guatemalan #fiction #dc by @annalaperawriter

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2 months ago