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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

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Little Book in the Big City! 💫

In the latest installment of the Bonkers Book Tour, we had a FABULOUS time at Politics & Prose in Washington, DC!

Visits from friends far and wide (Colorado! Guatemala!) and from many past walks of life. So special and lovely, and Anna Lapera was the perfect interlocutor. Thank you all ❤️

@politicsprose @annalaperawriter @upittpress @pinestatepublicity

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Join local authors, who will discuss the delightful craft of writing fiction for kids, focusing on the category of middle grade (ages 8-12).

This event is open to the public. Please RSVP at scrawlbooks.com/events. If you’re a member of SCBWI, you can also RSVP through the Mid-Atlantic website.

Bring your kids, your friends, your kids’ friends, your friend’s kids, your kid’s kids, your friends’ friends, and your friend’s kid’s hamster. (Just kidding on that last one.) See you in Reston!

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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

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I’ve finally recovered from a whirlwind second leg of the tour for CROC — first in DC for @teach_change with fellow Central American writers, then @bookmarksnc festival in North Carolina, and finally @bkbookfest — so many wonderful conversations, lots of laughs, & new & forever friendships 🐊💚

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THE LIWANAG FILIPINO LIT FEST DC IS TODAY!

And I’m feeling so lucky to have gotten to celebrate it with friends, authors, and organizers of this wonderful festival at the author reception last night. So make your way over to @loyaltybooks - Petworth location & @dcpubliclibrary Library from 12pm-4pm for day packed with amazing Filipino storytelling, food and much more!

And congrats to my lovely friend @readingismagical and her amazing team for making this festival possible this year ❤️📚

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Fall is for rooftops and celebrating the Liwanag Filipino Lit Fest DC happening Sunday 10/4 from 12-6 @loyaltybooks 💜✨

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Just two teacher-writer-moms on the loose at the library celebrating @dcpl @jasonreynolds83 and THE Carla Hayden 💜✨ @annalaperawriter let’s do it again tomorrow 🙌🏾

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Star power. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

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📚 Indie Bookstore Feature | Busboys and Poets | Washington, DC 📚

As some of you may know, this year I am challenging myself to visit a different indie bookstore each month - and make a purchase! To be honest, the only part that’s actually challenging is making sure I can find the time in my schedule. I love visiting and buying from indies as it is, so I was inspired when I saw my friend Anna @alltoo.wellread do this last year!

My September indie visit took me to an event at Busboys and Poets, a hybrid bookstore/restaurant/cafe with several locations in the Washington, DC area. This event took place at the location in DC’s U Street neighborhood. Thanks to the organization Teaching for Change, I got to listen to a panel of authors with Central American backgrounds talk about their work. Here’s the complete list:

🇬🇹 Moderator Anna Lapera, author of Mani Semilla Finds Her Quetzal Voice

🇨🇷 John Manuel Arias, author of Crocodilopolis - which I read and reviewed on my page last month

🇸🇻 Ana Patricia Rodríguez, author of Avocado Dreams (nonfiction!)

🇬🇹 Jared Lemus, whose short story collection is entitled Guatemalan Rhapsody

🇨🇷 Diana Rojas, whose novel They Hold Grudges is out next week!

I loved learning more about these authors and their work and really enjoyed the thoughtful conversation. Even better, I was able to indulge in some happy hour food and drink while I listened. I had learned about the event through author John Manuel Arias’s Instagram account, and it was such a joy to meet him and chat for a little bit!

It had been too long since I’d been to Busboys & Poets and I’m so glad I got to go back. It’s such a valuable community space and I’m so glad it exists in multiple locations. The book selection was also beautifully curated with so many diverse reads. For my purchases last night I chose Blood Over Bright Haven by M.L. Wang and later, John Manuel Arias’s first book - Where There Was Fire.

❓Since it’s Latine Heritage Month, what’s a book you loved by a Latine author?

🏷️
#independentbookstore #indiebookshop #dcbookstores #centralamericanauthors Indie Bookshop DC bookshops bookstores indie bookstore feature #latineauthors

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✨ ABOUT LAST NIGHT ✨

Do people even say that phrase anymore? Oh well, doesn’t matter! I had the chance to listen in to a wonderful chat with brilliant authors discussing writing into the Central American literary cannon and much more.

Don’t miss adding these books to your TBR (synopsis’s below) & if you’ve read them already, share your favorite book by an author of Central American descent below ⬇️

📚“Guatemalan Rhapsody by @jaredilemus explores how we journey from the circumstances that we are forged by, and whether the ability to change our fortunes lies in our own hands or in those of another. Revealing the places where beauty, desperation, love, violence, and hope exist simultaneously, Jared Lemus’s debut establishes him as a major new voice in the form.”

📚“Crocodilopolis by @johnmanuelarias is a masterful interrogation of power, masculinity, destiny, and legacy from a literary star on the rise.”

📚“In Avocado Dreams, Ana Patricia Rodríguez draws from her own positionality as a Salvadoran transplant to examine the construction of the unique Salvadoran cultural imaginary made in the greater D.C. area.”

📚“They Hold Grudges by @bydianarojas is a riveting exploration of the lines we draw between loyalty and truth. With layered, taut prose, it examines what we’re willing to sacrifice to keep the peace, and what remains if the truth is buried.”

📚 Mani Semilla Finds Her Quetzal Voice by @annalaperawriter - ”Life sucks when you’re twelve. You’re not a little kid, but you’re also not an adult, and all the grown-ups in your life talk about your body the minute it starts getting a shape. And what sucks even more than being a Chinese-Filipino-American-Guatemalan who can’t speak any ancestral language well? When almost every other girl in school has already gotten her period except for you and your two besties.”

#ReadLatineLit

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Central American stories are too often left out of the conversation during Latinx Heritage Month and beyond. Join us on Wednesday, Sept. 23 at Busboys and Poets 14th & V in D.C. for readings, conversation & book signings with authors John Manuel Arias, Anna Lapera, Ana Patricia Rodríguez, Diana Rojas & Jared Lemus. A chance to sit together, listen, and celebrate Central American stories as a community! RSVP: https://bit.ly/CCAV26 Image: Crocodilopolis: A Novel and photo of John Manuel Arias

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While every month is an opportunity to celebrate Hispanic and Latine/Latinx heritage, we would be remiss if we didn't acknowledge #NationalHispanicHeritageMonth! From @adalimonwriter to @johnleguizamo to @allendeisabel, there are so many Hispanic and Latine/Latinx authors in our shop to add to your #TBR pile this month (and every month)!
#hispanicauthors #latinxauthor #hispanicheritagemonth #explorewashingtonct #washingtonbusinessassociation

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