Austin Public Library recommends A Peculiar Kind of Immigrant's Son

A Peculiar Kind of Immigrant's Son (Cinco Puntos Press) makes the recommended list by librarians at the Austin Public Library. I love public libraries, and on Wednesday (12/18) I'll be at the Sergio Troncoso Branch Library in El Paso to give out the Troncoso Reading Prizes. So happy and grateful that librarians in Austin like my book. Support and fight for public libraries!

Austin Public Library: Recommended Titles

Interview in Blue Muse Magazine

Here's an interview I did with Emma Nelson at Blue Muse Magazine, a publication of Central
Connecticut State University. We met at the Connecticut Literary Festival. I love talking to students who are serious about writing, and Emma was an excellent interviewer. I hope you enjoy it.

"I followed Troncoso to the signing table and bought his new collection of stories, A Peculiar Kind of Immigrant’s Son. The fifty-eight-year-old author is gregarious and generous; readers ask him questions and he listens intently. With a red pen and glasses tucked into his white-and-grey striped shirt pocket, he signed my book with a friendly smile and was eager to explain the ins and outs of the short stories. He stayed at the signing after the other authors had left. When his books sold out, he sent his wife, Laura, to their car to retrieve additional copies."

https://bluemusemag.com/2019/12/10/connecting-across-borders-author-sergio-troncoso-emma-nelson/

LargeHearted Boy: Playlist for A Peculiar Kind of Immigrant's Son

Thank you, David Gutowski of LargeHearted Boy. He gave me the opportunity to create an imaginary playlist for A Peculiar Kind of Immigrant's Son at this nexus of writing and music. Thirteen songs on Spotify, with my commentary about how they remind me of the characters and situations in my book.

"I listen to music to think and to find inspiration from its emotions, energies, and rhythms. Music is a fount of creativity for me. When I’m deep in a story in my head and I’m trying to work out a character or plot line, or I’m thinking of the many layers of a story, I listen to music. It’s a way of letting go, of immersing myself in something new that is not writing. My favorite music always inspires me to find that solution that previously bedeviled me, or it loosens something stuck in my brain and I often have an aha! moment where I see what I previously did not see. All of this happens when I lose myself in sound."

http://www.largeheartedboy.com/blog/archive/2019/11/sergio_troncoso.html

Bookmarked Interview on KZSM with Sergio Troncoso

My KZSM radio interview in San Marcos is now available on MixCloud. Thank you, Priscilla Vance Leder, my radio host on Bookmarked, and Steve Davis who joined me on this interview.

"Author Sergio Troncoso talks about his compelling new short story collection, A Peculiar Kind of Immigrant's Son. These interrelated stories explore the complexities of self and identity through a variety of modes, from the realistic and contemporary to the realm of speculative fiction. Steve Davis, Literary Curator of the Wittliff Collections, joins Priscilla Vance Leder for this thought-provoking discussion."

https://www.mixcloud.com/PLeder/a-peculiar-kind-of-immigrants-son-interview-with-author-sergio-troncoso-broadcast-oct-29-2019/

Texas Monthly: Reinventing the Canon

Texas Monthly: "Born and raised in El Paso, Sergio Troncoso is a prolific short story writer, novelist, and essayist. In From This Wicked Patch of Dust, Pilar and Cuauhtémoc Martínez are raising their four children in Ysleta, a border town. The novel unspools over four decades, and spans from Ysleta to New York City to Tehran in the aftermath of September 11, as the physical, ideological, and religious borders between the family members threaten to separate them for good."

 https://www.texasmonthly.com/the-culture/latinx-texan-literature/

Must Read Fiction Interview with Sergio Troncoso

In this interview, Erin Popelka of Must Read Fiction speaks with Sergio Troncoso, whose most recent book is A Peculiar Kind of Immigrant's Son. Our conversation followed as delightful a range as the stories in this collection: we spoke of questions of home and varied immigrant experiences to stories of his grandmother as she smoked cigarettes and described living through the Mexican Revolution to the challenges he poses to his readers through his writing.

A few delightful quotes from our conversation: "I'm a little bit of a rebel. I like to unmoor the reader."
From his grandfather: "Don't become a journalist. If you tell the truth, people will hate you forever."

Questions for his readers: "Who are you? Are you who you want to be? What do you keep? What do you discard? Why? How are we going to be a we?"

These questions and rebellions and stories make for a wonderful journey, both in this interview and in the short story collection, A Peculiar Kind of Immigrant's Son.

https://youtu.be/4VcKNdwfoPA

C. M. Mayo Interviews Sergio Troncoso

C. M. Mayo: "Sergio Troncoso is a writer and literary activist whom I greatly admire. It so happens that we were born the same year in the same city: El Paso, Texas. And both of us lived our adult lives in cultural environments vastly different from El Paso: I went to Mexico City; Sergio to Harvard, Yale, and many years in New York City. Sergio’s works offer a wise, deeply considered, and highly original perspective on American culture."

 C.M. Mayo: What is the most important piece of advice you would offer to another writer who is just starting out? And, if you could travel back in time, to your own thirty year-old self?

SERGIO TRONCOSO: Read as if your life depended on it. Read critically in the area you are thinking of writing. Don’t be an idiot: seek out and appreciate the help of others who are trying to help you by pointing out your errors, your lapses in creating your literary aesthetic. Get a good night’s sleep: if you do, you’ll be ready to write new work the next day. And if you fail, you won’t destroy yourself because you did. You’ll be ready to sit in your chair the next day.

https://madam-mayo.com/q-a-sergio-troncoso-author-of-a-peculiar-kind-of-immigrants-son-on-reading-as-if-your-life-depended-on-it-emily-dickenson-the-digital-revolution-and-the-texas-institute-of-letters

Pan Dulce Podcast with Jessica Powers and Octavio Solis

Cinco Puntos Press's Editorial and Foreign Rights Director Jessica Powers moderates a chat with Sergio Troncoso (author of A Peculiar Kind of Immigrant's Son) and Octavio Solis (author of Retablos). The authors talk about their books, growing up in the Lower Valley area of El Paso, and what their Mexican American and fronterizo identities have meant for them as adults.

https://soundcloud.com/user-561863132/pan-dulce-ep2-writers-sergio-troncoso-and-octavio-solis

Deborah Kalb Interview

Deborah Kalb interviews me about A Peculiar Kind of Immigrant's Son, writing, and El Paso:

"The recent August massacre began with stereotypes and prejudices of who the people in El Paso were. These stereotypes missed the real El Paso, the values of hard work and dedication to family, and the peaceful humility of the largely working-class, immigrant community of El Paso.

"But to break these stereotypes people--especially the white population that has never been to the border--must read about and engage with El Paso (and other immigrant communities) and experience for themselves the pride El Pasoans feel about being hard-working Americans"

http://deborahkalbbooks.blogspot.com/2019/10/q-with-sergio-troncoso.html

Texas Observer: A Peculiar Kind of Immigrant's Son

From the Texas Observer on A Peculiar Kind of Immigrant's Son:

"From the start, this book takes place not so much at the border of things as on their edge: the contact zones of life and death, past and present, here and there, old and young. In the characters’ minds, we find ourselves on one side of a divide, perpetually looking back or across. With Troncoso, that endeavor is often as dark as it is funny. 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."

I am so grateful to the Texas Observer and Daniel Peña.

https://www.texasobserver.org/sergio-troncoso-peculiar-kind-immigrants-son-borderlands/