In the spirit of writing your own stories, I have some great news: one of my favorite stories to write will be appearing in Speculative Fiction for Dreamers: A Latinx Anthology (the Kickstarter for the project kicked off today). I can’t express how great it is to share a Table of Contents with so many other talented and accomplished Latinx speculative fiction writers! Not limited to only short fiction, the anthology will also include poetry and short comics between its covers.
As for my favorite story: I wrote How Juan Bobo Got To los Nueba Yores in late 2015, remembering the sometimes funny, often dark versions of the character’s folklore my grandfather told me and mixing it with with the different migrations of Puerto Ricans from the island (many of them to New York City). I tried to create a dreamy narrative where the walls between dreams, memory and yearning are thin enough to sometimes spill over into each other. This one went to every pro market available at the time, gathering rejections — several of them encouraging ones with personal notes from the editors. I remember glumly wondering if the references and other cultural aspects were too obscure to the places where I was sending the story. That is, until I found this project through The Submission Grinder‘s search function. I submitted it to the project, and was surprised when a few months later, it got accepted. I’m so very pleased with how this one turned out and I’m eager to share it with everyone!
Also note that if you would like my critique of your story (up to 12,000 words) there is a reward tier available for that!
While this is likely not the last post about Latinx Science Fiction and Fantasy, the Speculative Fiction for Dreamers anthology looks cool as hell, and I want to take a moment to celebrate it.