Category: Author news

Reyes Ramirez Receives Honorable Mention for the 2023 Eric Hoffer Book Award

Posted on July 28, 2023February 25, 2025 by Cameron Quan

July 28, 2023

Reyes Ramirez has received an honorable mention for The Book of Wanderers in the short story/anthology category for the 2023 Eric Hoffer Book Award.

The Eric Hoffer Book Award “honors the memory of the great American philosopher Eric Hoffer by highlighting salient writing, as well as the independent spirit of small publishers. Since its inception, the Hoffer has become one of the largest international book awards for small, academic, and independent presses.”

Congratulations, Reyes!

About the book:

What do a family of luchadores, a teen on the run, a rideshare driver, a lucid dreamer, a migrant worker in space, a mecha soldier, and a zombie-and-neo-Nazi fighter have in common?

Reyes Ramirez’s dynamic short story collection follows new lineages of Mexican and Salvadoran diasporas traversing life in Houston, across borders, and even on Mars. Themes of wandering weave throughout each story, bringing feelings of unease and liberation as characters navigate cultural, physical, and psychological separation and loss from one generation to the next in a tumultuous nation.

The Book of Wanderers deeply explores Houston, a Gulf Coast metropolis that incorporates Southern, Western, and Southwestern identities near the borderlands with a connection to the cosmos.

Authors Dante Lauretta and Brian May featured in the Arizona Daily Star

Posted on July 27, 2023July 26, 2023 by maryreynolds

July 27, 2023

Recently, the Arizona Daily Star interviewed author Dante Lauretta about how Brian May and his London Stereoscopic Company came to be involved in the publication of Bennu 3-D, Anatomy of an Asteroid.

Lauretta, Director of NASA Mission OSIRIS-REx, explained to reporter Henry Brean how he started working with Brian May, “Brian and I corresponded briefly about the mission and my hometown of Tucson, Arizona, where he had spent some time enjoying the natural beauty of the Sonoran Desert and using it for self-reflection, as many do.”

Lauretta had always been a fan of Brian May’s music, May was a founding member of the band Queen. Lauretta mentioned that Queen’s song “Under Pressure,” helped him through some tough times as a kid.

Lauretta said, “The fact that I was corresponding with one of my childhood heroes was beyond cool.”

Lauretta told Brean that he May kept in touch as the mission progressed. Lauretta said, “I couldn’t help but share some of the latest developments with him. To my delight, Brian showed a keen interest in the mission and the science behind it. It was clear that he was not just a casual fan, but a true space enthusiast and an advocate for space exploration.”

After Lauretta invited May to officially join the team, May and his London Stereoscopic team went to work. May and his collaborator, Claudia Manzoni, used early, publicly available data collected by the spacecraft to produce stereoscopic images that showed Bennu’s rugged and dangerous landscape in what Lauretta describes as “glorious 3-D.”

Watch preparation behind the scenes and evening book launch from London on Thursday, July 27. Live streaming starts at noon (GMT+1), 2:00 a.m. AZT, on Brian May’s Instagram: @brianmayforreal.

About Bennu 3-D, Anatomy of an Asteroid:

The world’s first complete (and stereoscopic) atlas of an asteroid is the result of a unique collaboration between OSIRIS-REx mission leader Dante Lauretta and Brian May’s London Stereoscopic Company. Lauretta’s colleagues include Carina Bennett, Kenneth Coles, and Cat Wolner, as well as Brian May and Claudia Manzoni, who became part of the ultimately successful effort to find a safe landing site for sampling. The text details the data collected by the mission so far, and the stereo images have been meticulously created by Manzoni and May from original images collected by the OSIRIS-REx cameras.

The print edition includes 120 illustrations, 50 maps, 80 stereoscopic images, and stereoscopic glasses.

Gloria Muñoz and Brandy Nālani McDougall Named Poet Laureate Fellows

Posted on July 25, 2023July 26, 2023 by maryreynolds

July 25, 2023

Congratulations to Gloria Muñoz, author of Danzirly, and Brandy Nālani McDougall, author of Aina Hanau / Birth Land ! They are two of 23 poets laureate in the United States to receive $50,000 as Poet Laureate Fellows in The Academy of American Poets. These 23 individuals serve as poets laureate of states, counties, and cities across the United States and will be leading public poetry programs in their respective communities in 2023–24. Muñoz is St. Petersburg, Florida, poet laureate, and McDougall is Hawai’i poet laureate.

“The Academy of American Poets celebrates the unique position poets laureate occupy at state and local levels, elevating the possibilities poetry can bring to community conversations and reminding us that our national spirit can be nourished by the power of the written and spoken word,” said Ricardo Maldonado, president and executive director of the Academy.

Francisco Aragón, editor of Wind Shifts: New Latino Poetry, was one of the panelists who recommended the recipients of the 2023 Fellowships. Aragón is the founding director of Letras Latinas at Notre Dame’s Institute for Latino Studies.

Congratulations again to Gloria and Brandy!

Author David DeJong on PBS News Hour

Posted on July 19, 2023July 20, 2023 by maryreynolds

PBS News Hour interviewed David DeJong, author of Stealing the Gila and Diverting the Gila, about water rights. DeJong is Director of the Pima-Maricopa Irrigation Project. PBS NewsHour correspondent Stephanie Sy spoke with DeJong and community members Ramona Button and Terry Farms about how the federal government took water from the Gila River Indian Community by building the Gila River dam. The Gila River is part of the Colorado River watershed. And now the federal government has finally provided funds to the Gila River Indian Community to bring back water to their lands and restore the agricultural economy. Watch the PBS News Hour Story: “Despite owning rights to Colorado River, tribes largely cut off from accessing water.”

About Stealing the Gila:

By 1850 the Pima Indians of central Arizona had developed a strong and sustainable agricultural economy based on irrigation. As David H. DeJong demonstrates, the Pima were an economic force in the mid-nineteenth century middle Gila River valley, producing food and fiber crops for western military expeditions and immigrants. As immigrants settled upstream from the Pima villages, they deprived the Indians of the water they needed to sustain their economy. DeJong traces federal, territorial, and state policies that ignored Pima water rights even though some policies appeared to encourage Indian agriculture. This is a particularly egregious example of a common story in the West: the flagrant local rejection of Supreme Court rulings that protected Indian water rights.

About Diverting the Gila:

Water was as vital to newcomers to Arizona’s Florence and Casa Grande valleys as it had always been to the Pima Indians, who had been successfully growing crops along the Gila River for generations when the white settlers moved in. Diverting the Gila explores the complex web of tension, distrust, and political maneuvering to divide and divert the scarce waters of the Gila River. Residents of Florence, Casa Grande, and the Pima Reservation fought for vital access to water rights. Into this political foray stepped Arizona’s freshman congressman Carl Hayden, who not only united the farming communities but also used Pima water deprivation to the advantage of Florence-Casa Grande and Upper Gila Valley growers.

Dante Lauretta Hits the Airwaves

Posted on June 26, 2023June 29, 2023 by maryreynolds

June 26, 2023

Arizona Public Media’s “The Buzz” interviewed Dante Lauretta about what to expect when OSIRIS-REx returns to earth. Lauretta is co-author of the forthcoming book, Bennu 3-D, Anatomy of an Asteroid. In the interview, Lauretta explained: “We’ve got to do multiple things. First of all, we got to get ready to receive that capsule. . . . Of course, the sample has to get to Houston, to NASA’s Johnson Space Center. So we’ve been doing a lot of work building the curation lab, making sure it’s ultra clean, getting all the hardware in place, and reviewing the procedure for disassembling the flight hardware. Then for me, the best part is the real science. This is a sample return mission. Our goal is to analyze that material and we’re going after the whole history of the solar system.”

On “Houston We Have A Podcast,” Gary Jordan interviewed the OSRIS-REx mission’s deputy project manager, Mike Moreau, and the mission’s lead curator, Nicole Lunning. Lunning detailed the sample protection process for when the capsule carrying the Bennu asteroid sample lands in the Utah desert on September 24, 2023: “We’ll collect the sample as quickly as possible and actually connect it basically to a nitrogen bottle here in Utah to maintain that nitrogen atmosphere, and keep it from having any of the contact with Earth’s atmosphere that just always happens to meteorites no matter how rapidly you collect them.”

About Bennu 3-D, Anatomy of an Asteroid:

The print edition includes 120 illustrations, 50 maps, and 80 stereoscopic images

Author Andrew Curley on NBC News

Posted on June 23, 2023 by maryreynolds

June 23, 2023

NBC News interviewed Andrew Curley, author of Carbon Sovereignty, about the Supreme Court decision regarding water rights on the Navajo Nation. The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 against the Navajo Nation in a dispute involving water rights in the lower Colorado River Basin. Curley said, “It’s not surprising that the Supreme Court, a colonial court, would side with a colonial government. The power is stacked against tribes in this scenario.”

In the minority opinion, Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote that he would have allowed the case to go forward and he characterized the Navajo’s position as a “simple ask.” Lawyers for the Navajo Nation stated that they were seeking only an assessment of the tribe’s water needs and a plan to meet them. Gorsuch also offered hope for the Navajo Nation indicating that his colleagues in the majority recognized that the tribe may still be able to “assert the interests they claim in water rights litigation, including by seeking to intervene in cases that affect their claimed interests.”

About Carbon Sovereignty:

For almost fifty years, coal dominated the Navajo economy. But in 2019 one of the Navajo Nation’s largest coal plants closed. This comprehensive new work offers a deep dive into the complex inner workings of energy shift in the Navajo Nation. Geographer Andrew Curley, a member of the Navajo Nation, examines the history of coal development within the Navajo Nation, including why some Diné supported coal and the consequences of doing so. He explains the Navajo Nation’s strategic choices to use the coal industry to support its sovereignty as a path forward in the face of ongoing colonialism. Carbon Sovereignty demonstrates the mechanism of capitalism through colonialism and the construction of resource sovereignty, in both the Navajo Nation’s embrace and its rejection of a coal economy.

***
Andrew Curley is a member of the Navajo Nation and an assistant professor in the School of Geography, Development & Environment at the University of Arizona. He has studied the social, cultural, and political implications of coal mining in the Navajo Nation, and his latest research is on the environmental history of water diversions on the Colorado River and the impact of colonial infrastructures on tribal nations.

LitHub Recommends ‘Āina Hānau / Birth Land

Posted on June 7, 2023June 6, 2023 by maryreynolds

June 7, 2023

LitHub recommends ‘Āina Hānau / Birth Land by Brandy Nālani McDougall as one of “7 New Poetry Collections to Read in June.” Reviewer Rebecca Morgan Frank introduces the collections: “Small presses dominate this early summer list, reminding us that American poetry thrives year-round. Head out to your June gardens, real or imagined, and start reading.” She says of ‘Āina Hānau / Birth Land: “This is a book of resistance as well as love.”

‘Āina Hānau / Birth Land is a powerful collection of new poems by Kanaka ʻŌiwi (Native Hawaiian) poet Brandy Nālani McDougall. ‘Āina hānau—or the land of one’s birth—signifies identity through intimate and familial connections to place and creates a profound bond between the people in a community. McDougall’s poems flow seamlessly between ‘Ōlelo Hawai‘i and English, forming rhythms and patterns that impress on the reader a deep understanding of the land. Tracing flows from the mountains to the ocean, from the sky to the earth, and from ancestor to mother to child, these poems are rooted in the rich ancestral and contemporary literature of Hawaiʻi —moʻolelo, moʻokūʻauhau, and mele —honoring Hawaiian ʻāina, culture, language, histories, aesthetics, and futures.

Novels to Find the Real America

Posted on May 31, 2023May 31, 2023 by maryreynolds

May 31, 2023

“A map of 1,001 novels to show us where to find the real America” includes two books from the UA Press. Find your America by reading the story written by Susan Straight in the Los Angeles Times, or go directly to the Storymap here. UA Press books featured are a collection of short stories and a novel. To discover El Paso and beyond, read The Last Tortilla and Other Stories by Sergio Troncoso. To discover a real Los Angeles neighborhood, read The Book of Want by Daniel A. Olivas.

About The Last Tortilla and Other Stories:

Troncoso’s El Paso is a normal town where common people who happen to be Mexican eat, sleep, fall in love, and undergo epiphanies just like everyone else. His tales are coming-of-age stories from the Mexican-American border, stories of the working class, stories of those coping with the trials of growing old in a rapidly changing society. He also explores New York with vignettes of life in the big city, capturing its loneliness and danger. Troncoso sets aside the polemics about social discomfort sometimes found in contemporary Chicano writing and focuses instead on the moral and intellectual lives of his characters. The twelve stories gathered here form a richly textured tapestry that adds to our understanding of what it is to be human.

About The Book of Want:

When Moses descended Mount Sinai carrying the Ten Commandments, he never could have foreseen how one family in Los Angeles in the early twenty-first century would struggle to live by them. Conchita, a voluptuous, headstrong single woman of a certain age, sees nothing wrong with enjoying the company of handsome—and usually much younger—men . . . that is, until she encounters a widower with unusual gifts and begins to think about what she really wants out of life. A delightful family tapestry woven with the threads of all those whose lives are touched by Conchita, The Book of Want is an enchanting blend of social and magical realism that tells a charming story about what it means to be fully human.

David Lazaroff Is Picturing Sabino on TV

Posted on May 23, 2023 by maryreynolds

May 23, 2023

Picturing Sabino: A Photographic History of a Southwestern Canyon and author David Lazaroff were featured on KGUN-9’s “Absolutely Arizona.” Pat Parris interviewed Lazaroff about the human history of the canyon and showed several historic photos from the book. Lazaroff explained how people traveled to the canyon on horses or in carriages in the 19th century. He also debunked the myth of how Sabino Canyon got it’s name: it’s not from the name of a rancher’s daughter nor the Spanish name for a reddish horse. What is the true story of the canyon’s name? Watch the video here. To see 195 historic photos, and learn more about the myths and legends of Sabino Canyon, read the book!

Sabino Canyon, a desert canyon in the American Southwest near Tucson, Arizona, is enjoyed yearly by thousands of city residents as well as visitors from around the world. Picturing Sabino tells the story of the canyon’s transformation from a barely known oasis, miles from a small nineteenth-century town, into an immensely popular recreation area on the edge of a modern metropolis. Covering a century of change, from 1885 to 1985, this work rejoices in the canyon’s natural beauty and also relates the ups and downs of its protection and enjoyment.

Book Riot Features ‘Āina Hānau / Birth Land

Posted on May 19, 2023 by maryreynolds

May 19, 2023

‘Āina Hānau / Birth Land by Brandy Nālani McDougall is one of Book Riot’s “10 Essential Poetry Books by AAPI Authors.” Reviewer Connie Pan writes, “I delight in sharing one of my most eagerly awaited poetry titles of 2023. McDougall’s propulsive second collection about Hawai‘i’s culture, Kanaka ‘Ōiwi identity, memory, and parenthood gripped me so.”

The University of Arizona Press