Great news! My flash fiction piece "Three Penises" is in the amazing anthology Blaze. I am honored to have my work printed along with so many wonderful authors like Carmen Baca, Steve Carr, David Bowmore, Mark Kodama, and others.  You can get the hard copy at Lulu Press and Kindle version on Amazon.

My book Not Your Abuelita's Folktales is doing great in the Amazon rankings and climbing for both paperback and Kindle books. I am also pleased as punch to have a great reaction quote from P.C. Darkliff in my Amazon book description.

You may recall how I agonized over which submission to send this press, months back. I am honored to have my poem "Jesucristo Santificanos" accepted in In Case of Emergency Press! I will let you know when that anthology comes out.

Finally, I have another event, on Friday, July 12. I have to secure the library and set the time, but you can see details in the future @ https://www.facebook.com/events/457667014802826/. I will be reading from Not Your Abuelita's Folktales and Blaze.  There will also be a Southwest themed potluck and an Open Mic--for bragging rights. If you are in the Chicago area, I hope you will attend!  Stay tuned!

Well folks, it is a wonderful morning, and I am so happy to share my good news. I hope you are celebrating your milestones today! #barrioblues

FINALLY! THE PAPERBACK POSTED! I want to give my editor M. Landsberger and my incredible support team a huge cyber hug!

******
Not Your Abuelita's Folktales

Paperback: $6.99 on Amazon.

• ISBN-10: 1071410156
• ISBN-13: 978-1071410158

Finalized Kindle Book: $2.99 Coming soon
ASIN: B07T1HPB1J

"These are not your grandmother’s folktales. . . "

“The Extravagant Stranger” Rosa Maria has great plans to marry a rich man and never work a day in her life. One day, an extravagant stranger sweeps her off her feet and promises to give her all she desires. . . .

“Unforgivable” Beto Andrades is deeply in love with his neighbor Sarah Stan. Yet, as an undocumented teen, he doesn’t stand a chance with her. What is worse, her father hates all Mexicans. . . .

“Magical Bully” Meet Rita, an inquisitive young girl with a budding scientific mind. Her world is perfectly logical, until she encounters a duende, a magical creature. . . .

“Never Really Alone” Isella’s boyfriend, Rich, is back from MIT. He isn’t the same anymore, and she wonders if it’s time for them to break up.

**Four no-holds-barred, supernatural tales for young adults.**
******

I also want to thank everyone who attended my first-ever book release party yesterday. You can watch a video of the reading here:  https://www.facebook.com/drmariajestrada/videos/2335670283313342/. I will host another event mid-July, so stay tuned!

Well, we are in a rush to get to church and afterwards, spend the day with my husband for Father's Day.  I hope all Fathers and Father Figures have a fantastic day of happiness and rest.

Celebrate your victories and love the Da's in your life. #barrioblues

I feel I should get a trophy: I just ordered the proof of Not Your Abuelita's Folktales. After inputting the feedback from my amazing editor, I finally got my manuscript formatted and ordered the proof.

Let's just say, in the end, I had to simplify the print design because my dream of having separate section headers for each story title did not work out.  I don't suppose the reader will forget I wrote it and that the text contains four novelettes. 

After messing around with the sections so much, it was just a battle to get the page numbers right and continuous. I had to move on before I got a damned stroke.  Plus, I saw a young adult book with street cred that only had centered page numbers within the novel, only centered page numbers. 

The great news: it's done. So, I am moving on. Moving on, I say!

The other awesome news is, I got a great editor/copy editor, Monique Landsberger.  Monique is a former student of mine, who was extraordinarily talented in my creative writing class.  She has been the best peer reviewer, and the feedback she gave me has moved miles from where she was at a few years ago.  I gave her credit in the "Acknowledgements" and on Amazon.  We are trading work for a great price.  That is, I am hiring her, and helping her free of charge.  She did such a great job, I decided to send her a copy of Mona's Return and asked her to raze the shit out of it. Then, I will re-craft it into something beautiful.

I really want to produce my absolute best work and get better.  

The other bit of good news is that I am getting a micro fiction piece, "Three Penises", published in Blaze, a Clarendon House publication. My first fiction anthology submission. Of course, I am excited to work on the next submission which is a sci-fi piece titled "Pustules". (Actually, I have a number of sci-fi pieces to choose from, but right now, I am favoring that story.)

Happily, I have also started revising The Harvest and also putting it into Shunn formatting. I have a July deadline to send it to the editor.  Then, I am pitching it to Pitch Wars and other agents after that because the chances of getting chosen are slim. 

Well, I am off to edit Mona's Return and figure out how to do $0 pricing on Amazon for the e-book.

Finally, I want to invite you all, once again, to my first-ever book release party of Not Your Abuelita’s Folktales, June 15, 2109, 2:00 p.m. @ RYUU Asian BBQ 2766 N. Milwaukee Ave., Chicago, Illinois 60647. I will be Live Streaming the reading on my Facebook Author Wall from 2:15p.m. to 2:45 p.m. central time. There will be wine and appetizers! Oh, and book drawings of some of my favorite folks!

Well, when writing or publishing throws mud in you face, remember, you're going to start a new project that will excite you and make you forget the pains of the previous project. Dust off and keep on.  #barrioblues