Tag Archives: Author Talk

United Palace: Literature to Life stage presentation of I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter

Date: Monday, January 27th | Doors: 6:30pm | Performance followed by talkback: 7–8:30pm | $20 general admission

Literature to Life adapts Erika L. Sánchez’s YA novel as their newest title in their Signature Performance series. This title will be co-produced in partnership with Freedom Reads, the only organization in the nation transforming the experience of incarceration by opening libraries in prison housing facilities. I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter takes place in modern day Chicago. The novel focuses on the idea of finding one’s own identity, and breaking free from societal, cultural, and familial expectations.

United Palace of Cultural Arts presents
Literature to Life stage presentation of
I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter
By Erika L. Sánchez
Performed by Elizabeth Raquel Ramirez
Adapted and Directed by Ana Maria Jomolca

Based on the novel I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter, © 2017

Production produced in partnership with Freedom Reads.

Elizabeth Raquel Ramirez is a proud Hispanic actress from San Antonio, Texas. Her credits include In The Heights at Oklahoma City University and two award-winning shorts, Most Likely To and Dream Carriers. She is most known for her contribution to the HBOMax documentary Homeschool Musical: Class of 2020, produced by Tony Award winner Laura Benanti.

LITERATURE TO LIFE (LTL) is a performance-based literacy program that presents professionally staged verbatim adaptations of American literary classics. LTL’s mission is to perform great books that inspire young people to read and become authors of their own lives. LTL was founded more than three decades ago as the educational program of the American Place Theatre. Now an independent organization, this mighty collective of artists and educators brings the voices of diverse authors to thousands of students and audiences nationwide, giving them the tools to become the empowered “voices worth hearing” of our future. www.literaturetolife.org | @lit2life

 

 

Word Up Recirculation: Renée Watson’s THE BLUES IN THE SKY with Jason Reynolds

Monday, February 3, 2025 – 6:30pm to 8:30pm
RECIRCULATION A project of Word Up
876 Riverside Drive (near 160th St.)
New York, NY 10032

register

Word Up welcomes #1 New York Times bestselling and Newbery Honor author Renée Watson to celebrate her latest middle-grade novel-in-verse All the Blues in the Sky, which explores friendship, loss, and life with grief. Joining Watson in conversation will be award-winning author Jason Reynolds.

Tickets are available at WithFriends.co/WordUp.

  • Free for ages under 20 (including private reception*)
  • $5 ticket for ages 20+
  • $20 ticket with ALL THE BLUES IN THE SKY
  • $20 Buy a book for a local youth

*Teen ticket holders are invited to a private author reception with Renée Watson and Jason Reynolds starting at 5 p.m. Drinks and snacks will be provided. Adults accompanying the teens will be allowed entrance.

In compliance with Word Up Community Safety guidelines, all attendees are encouraged to stay masked at all time.

Recirculation, a project of Word Up Community Bookshop, is located at 876 Riverside Drive (near 160th St.) in Washington Heights, NYC. You can take the 1 train to 157th St., A/C train to 163rd St., and the M4 and M5 to Broadway and 159/160th.

ABOUT THE BOOK

Sage’s thirteenth birthday was supposed to be about movies and treats, staying up late with her best friend and watching the sunrise together. Instead, it was the day her best friend died. Without the person she had to hold her secrets and dream with, Sage is lost. In a counseling group with other girls who have lost someone close to them, she learns that not all losses are the same, and healing isn’t predictable. There is sadness, loneliness, anxiety, guilt, pain, love. And even as Sage grieves, new, good things enter her life-and she just may find a way to know that she can feel it all.

In accessible, engaging verse and prose, this is a story of a girl’s journey to heal, grow, and forgive herself. To read it is to see how many shades there are in grief, and to know that someone understands.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Renée Watson is a #1 New York Times bestselling author. Her novel, Piecing Me Together, received a Newbery Honor and Coretta Scott King Award. Her books include the Ryan Hart series, Some Places More Than Others, This Side of Home, What Momma Left Me, Betty Before X, cowritten with Ilyasah Shabazz, Watch Us Rise, cowritten with Ellen Hagan, and Love Is a Revolution, as well as acclaimed picture books: Maya’s Song, The 1619 Project: Born on the Water, written with Nikole Hannah-Jones, A Place Where Hurricanes Happen, and Harlem’s Little Blackbird, which was nominated for an NAACP Image Award. Renée splits her time between Portland, Oregon and New York City. http://www.reneewatson.net | @harlemportland (Instagram) | @reneewauthor (X)

ABOUT THE MODERATOR

Jason Reynolds is a #1 New York Times bestselling author of many award-winning books, including Look Both Ways: A Tale Told in Ten Blocks, All American Boys (with Brendan Kiely), Long Way Down, Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You (with Ibram X. Kendi), Stuntboy, in the Meantime (illustrated by Raúl the Third), and Ain’t Burned All the Bright (with artwork by Jason Griffin). The recipient of a Newbery Honor, a Printz Honor, an NAACP Image Award, and multiple Coretta Scott King honors, Reynolds is also the 2020-2022 National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature. He has appeared on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, The Daily Show with Trevor Noah, Late Night with Seth Meyers, CBS Sunday Morning, Good Morning America, and various media outlets. He is on faculty at Lesley University, for the Writing for Young People MFA Program and lives in Washington, DC.