writing life – Page 63 – Andrew Careaga

I’d gotten sick and tired of the news — and even more weary of the distortions and reverberations of news and pseudo-news that skittered around the social media universe like ripples from a thousand stones thrown simultaneously into a sludgy pond. Stories and rumors of Haitian immigrants eating cats and dogs, the backlash to Taylor Swift’s announced support for Kamala Harris, the hate and vitriol spewing forth on cable news and X, which Elon Musk, despite his supposed commitment to making the platform a space for free speech, has turned into a raging hate machine — all of it was taking its toll on my soul and psyche.

So I decided to heavily curtail my consumption of news and news-related information. I could go without news for a week, I thought to myself. It wouldn’t be easy for an info-junkie like me, but I would do my best.

You can be forgiven for not knowing we are in the midst of National Hispanic Heritage Month. Even I, a pocho but still proud of my Hispanic heritage (or Latino/a/x, if you prefer), often find myself taken by surprise when this annual event shows up on the calendar — probably because it’s a “month” that really isn’t. It starts in the middle of September and ends in the middle of October, an oddity that probably contributes to its lack of visibility.

Hispanic authors, too, often lack visibility in the mainstream of literature. Now that we’re almost a week into National Hispanic Heritage Month, I want to devote this Friday Five to Hispanic writers. Although many exceptional U.S. writers have Hispanic roots, they’re often overshadowed in the literary world.

Category: writing life

Friday Five: contemporary Hispanic authors you should read