TIL Award Winners Panel at 2020 Texas Book Festival

As president of the Texas Institute of Letters, Sergio Troncoso moderates a panel of three TIL Award Winners at the 2020 Virtual Texas Book Festival: Ruben Degollado, Lupe Mendez, and Naomi Shihab Nye. All three read from their award-winning books and discuss important literary questions as well as questions about their work and life during COVID-19. 

https://youtu.be/zvN591OYRf0

 

 

Nepantla Familias: An Anthology of Mexican American Literature on Families in between Worlds

I am the editor of a great new anthology forthcoming in 2021, Nepantla Familias: An Anthology of Mexican American Literature on Families in between Worlds (Texas A&M Press and the Wittliff Collections). Twenty-five of the thirty works in this collection are unpublished, from Sandra Cisneros, Reyna Grande, Jose Antonio Rodriguez, Rigoberto Gonzalez, ire'ne lara silva, Matt Mendez, Diana Lopez, Alex Espinoza, Daniel Chacon, Helena Maria Viramontes, Stephanie Elizondo Griest, Deborah Paredez, David Romo, Francisco Cantu, Domingo Martinez, Oscar Casares, Lorraine Lopez, David Dominguez, Stephanie Li, Sheryl Luna, Octavio Quintanilla, Diana Marie Delgado, Octavio Solis, Severo Perez, and Ruben Degollado! Here's the terrific cover by Antonio Castro and a blurb from Juan Felipe Herrera.

"Such a window, such an ax, into the hard, human struggles of writers, sisters and brothers here — resolving, harmonizing and perhaps, simply just telling their Nepantlas. These lives in-between bridges of culture, of gender, of memory and presence, invisibility and courage, of raped bodies on the precipice of healing and wholeness, of speaking versus silence, of shame in-between wholeness, of big time university life then riding back to Segundo Barrio DNA. And of mothers drifting and daughters blazing in the Now. Each page, a revelation. Each story, a valley of tears and a mountain of triumph. This Nepantla Familia will tear your heart open. You will finally get to feel like a human being. You will have humanity in your hands. One of a kind, I thank Troncoso for this anthology — I bow before these writers of truth and love. A mega-ground-crackling and life expanding house of diamonds."

—Juan Felipe Herrera, Poet Laureate of the USA, Emeritus

 

To pre-order your copy, visit Texas A&M University Press: 

https://www.tamupress.com/book/9781623499631/nepantla-familias/

Revista Latina North Carolina Interview with Sergio Troncoso

For those of you who read Spanish, here's an interview about A Peculiar Kind of Immigrant's Son (Cinco Puntos Press) in Revista Latina North Carolina. I hope you enjoy it.

 

Para aquellos que leen español, aquí hay una entrevista sobre A Peculiar Kind of Immigrant's (Cinco Puntos Press) en la Revista Latina North Carolina. Espero que lo disfruten.

 

https://www.revistalatinanc.com/2020/11/12/sergio-troncoso-en-entrevista-para-revista-latina-nc/

Houston Chronicle Op-Ed: Los Viejitos, our Heritage, and the Pandemic

Sergio Troncoso: “My mother is the storyteller now, the one with great stories of grit and perseverance that give me a glimpse of how I became who I am today. Just like my grandmother. Their history is our history. Our present becomes more meaningful when we have our viejitos to tell us their stories. If this presidential election is about anything, it should be about why they should always matter to us.”

https://www.houstonchronicle.com/opinion/outlook/article/Essay-Protect-los-viejitos-our-oldsters-and-15651571.php

New Books Network Interview with Sergio Troncoso

Galit Gottlieb of New Books Network interviews Sergio Troncoso about A Peculiar Kind of Immigrant's Son (Cinco Puntos Press), the landscape of west Texas versus northwest Connecticut, family as a source of inspiration, Nietzsche's perspectivism in storytelling, and his abuelita as his muse.

https://newbooksnetwork.com/sergio-troncoso-a-peculiar-kind-of-immigrants-son-cinco-puntos-press-2020/

A Peculiar Kind of Immigrant's Son Wins International Latino Book Award

Last night my book A Peculiar Kind of Immigrant's Son (Cinco Puntos Press) won First Place in the category Best Collection of Short Stories (English/Bilingual) at the International Latino Book Awards. The judges called the collection "poignant and powerful; a tour de force!"

I am grateful for the honor and want to thank the judges for choosing my book. The competition was stiff, and Edward James Olmos was the emcee of the virtual live event and had presenters like

Juan Felipe Herrera, Eva Longoria, Esmeralda Santiago, and Isabel Allende. I was shocked when they read my name. Thank you. I was so excited last night it took me a while to fall asleep!

 

https://www.latinobookawards.org/

 

Bookchat Interview with Sergio Troncoso

Bookchat: You’re organizing a literary dinner party. Which three writers, dead or alive, do you invite?

Sergio Troncoso: "We would have to be drinking, so we may or may not be eating. I would have James Joyce, Friedrich Nietzsche (we might need a translator who also serves drinks), and Virginia Woolf. They probably wouldn’t like each other, but in this imaginary drinking fest I could get them to have a drink or two (or three) and we could talk about literary ideas for at least a few hours. Then before the fistfights began I’d get them an Uber and tell them to get the hell out of my house."

https://swwordfiesta.org/bookchat-an-interview-with-sergio-troncoso/

Celebrating Cinco Punto Press's 35th Anniversary

I wrote this piece for El Paso Matters to celebrate Cinco Puntos Press's 35th Anniversary:

"My experience with them has been like coming home as a writer: Lee is a first-class editor with an uncanny attention to detail, and Jessica Powers, their “vice president of imagination,” has been the best editor and reader I have ever had. When I want to have an hours-long conversation about character, a complex plot, El Paso, and the literary history of the border, these are people I trust and listen to and appreciate for their expertise and friendship."

https://elpasomatters.org/2020/08/28/acclaimed-author-sergio-troncoso-celebrates-cinco-puntos-presss-35-years-in-el-paso/

Albuquerque Journal Review: A Peculiar Kind of Immigrant's Son

"Sergio Troncoso demonstrates in the short-story collection A Peculiar Kind of Immigrant’s Son that he’s a master storyteller but with a special bent."

Thank you, Albuquerque Journal and David Steinberg.

https://www.abqjournal.com/1477173/two-story-collections-reflect-the-impact-of-living-and-working-in-the-southwest.html

Remembering Rudy Anaya

My article in the El Paso Times to remember Rudy Anaya. I think it will run in Sunday's print edition in the Opinion section. When the Times asked me to do it earlier this week, I dropped everything. I needed to do it for Rudy. Que descanse en paz.

https://www.elpasotimes.com/story/opinion/2020/07/09/sergio-troncoso-remembers-great-writer-friend-rudolfo-rudy-anaya/5405469002/

Sergio Troncoso Wins Silver Award from Foreword Reviews

A Peculiar Kind of Immigrant's Son (Cinco Puntos Press) wins the Silver Award for Multicultural Adult Fiction in ForeWord Reviews' Book of the Year Awards.

"This is a world-class collection." ---Luis Alberto Urrea

"The El Paso author's newest collection depicts contemporary Mexican American life with a characteristic blend of sorrow and humor. It's his most powerful work yet, and an essential addition to the Latinx canon." ---The Texas Observer

"Chicano literature began with the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, when a sizable Latino population was separated from its land and heritage. Sergio Troncoso has written brilliantly of this disruption and its pull." ---Journal of Alta California

https://www.forewordreviews.com/awards/books/a-peculiar-kind-of-immigrants-son/

Sergio Troncoso: 2020 Graduation Message

El Paso Matters asked author Sergio Troncoso (A Peculiar Kind of Immigrant's Son, Cinco Puntos Press) to record a short graduation message for all students graduating in 2020, the year of the COVID-19 pandemic. He believes in always encouraging the next generation, especially from his hometown of El Paso, Texas.

https://youtu.be/HPb5ql32ZBg

Virtual Book Groups: Sergio Troncoso

If you are reading A Peculiar Kind of Immigrant’s Son or any other of Sergio Troncoso’s books, he will meet with your book group by Zoom for an hour or two. Zoom is easy to use, and the host (Sergio Troncoso) sets up the meeting and emails all participants with a link, which they click to enter the ‘virtual meeting.’ Sergio will be able to see and hear all the participants on his computer, and they will be able to see and hear him on their computers too. You can talk about any book by Sergio that the group has read, ask him questions about his novels, stories or essays, and discuss the craft of writing with him as well. Each month he will only do a few of these Virtual Book Groups as his time and schedule permits.

Write to him at SergioTroncoso(AT)gmail(DOT)com and tell him about your book group, and he’ll let you know quickly about his future availability. It’s easy to schedule, and Sergio loves talking to his readers.

https://sergiotroncoso.com/virtualbookgroups/index.htm

Contra Viento Journal Intervews Sergio Troncoso

My interview in Contra Viento Journal was published today. Thank you Gabriel Dozal and Sean McCoy.

"I also think growing up dirt poor on the border had a profound effect on me. My neighborhood in Ysleta hasn’t changed too much: it’s become working-class, when it was actually poorer in the ’60s and ’70s. Not even working class. I believe, and have always believed, in los de abajo, the very poor, and what they have to contribute, the ideas they explore, the importance of their lives, even if so many others just ignore them. If that’s empathy, then I wholeheartedly embrace it. But even that word, ‘empathy,’ seems studied somehow: these are just the people I knew, the people I grew up with, my people."

https://contravientojournal.org/radiant-perspectives-on-the-border-conversation-sergio-troncoso-peculiar-kind-of-immigrants-son/

Midwest Book Review: A Peculiar Kind of Immigrant's Son

A great review of A Peculiar Kind of Immigrant’s Son (Cinco Puntos Press) from the Midwest Book Review. Thank you.

“An inherently fascinating and compelling read from first page to last, A Peculiar Kind of Immigrant's Son is an extraordinary and deftly written collection, and one that is especially and unreservedly recommended for both community and academic library Hispanic American Literature & Fiction collections.”

http://midwestbookreview.com/wbw/feb_20.htm#GeneralFiction

Sergio Troncoso Wins Kay Cattarulla Award

Yesterday I received this news: The first story "Rosary on the Border" in A Peculiar Kind of Immigrant's Son (Cinco Puntos Press) won the 2020 Kay Cattarulla Award for Best Short Story ($1,000) from the Texas Institute of Letters. Thank you to the judges for selecting my story.

On this crazy day, I also found out that I have an offer for an English and Spanish audio book for A Peculiar Kind of Immigrant's Son. So it's been a heckuva day!

http://www.texasinstituteofletters.org/news/2020-TIL-Winners-News-Release.pdf

Literal Magazine Review: A Peculiar Kind of Immigrant's Son

Review in Literal Magazine of A Peculiar Kind of Immigrant’s Son (Cinco Puntos Press):

“The short stories in A Peculiar Kind of Immigrant’s Son, his latest book, are all linked: many share the same characters, and some—in a neat narrative trick—even cause one to entirely reevaluate a previous story. Generally, they move from stark, spare realism in the first few stories, to lush dystopian surrealism in the last few. Although many stories take place far from the Rio Grande, this is a robust, proud exploration of what it is like to be (on what one character calls) “the edge of the edge of the United States”: to be the child of immigrants, to be straddling two worlds—lines between love and sex, past and future, civilization and brutality, life and death.”

http://literalmagazine.com/a-peculiar-kind-of-immigrants-son-review/

Behind the Pages Interviews Sergio Troncoso

Diane Goshgarian of Behind the Pages interviews Sergio Troncoso at 22-CityView in Cambridge, Massachusetts on November of 26, 2019. They have an in depth discussion about A Peculiar Kind of Immigrant's Son, particularly the first three stories, "Rosary on the Border," "New Englander," and "A Living Museum of Love."

https://youtu.be/NFn6fTS8ncU

Writers Corner Live TV Show Interviews Sergio Troncoso

Thank you to Bridgetti Lim Banda (Cape Town) and Mary Elizabeth Jackson (Nashville) for our discussion yesterday on Writers Corner Live TV Show. Just loved chatting with both of you about A Peculiar Kind of Immigrant's Son (Cinco Puntos Press) and the continuing literary influence of my maternal grandmother, Doña Dolores Rivero, who is never far from my thoughts.

 

https://youtu.be/4Kxo-Mv_-Lg