One of my favorite things in fiction has to do with stealth, sneakiness, and subversion. I love spy stories and…
Author: Aya de Leon
Aya de Leon directs the Poetry for the People program in the African American Studies Department at UC Berkeley. Her work has appeared in Essence Magazine, xojane, Ebony, Guernica, Writers Digest, Mutha Magazine, Movement Strategy Center, My Brown Baby, KQED Pop, Bitch Magazine, Racialicious, Fusion, and she has been a guest on HuffPostLive. She is the author of the children's picture book PUFFY: PEOPLE WHOSE HAIR DEFIES GRAVITY. Kensington Books will be publishing her debut feminist heist novel, UPTOWN THIEF, in 2016. For more info, go to ayadeleon.wordpress.com.
In college, I went through a Black Nationalist period, and read a number of novels written by African American men…
Last week, I turned in a very rough and raggedy second draft of book #2 to my editor at Kensington.…
I devoured MODERN GIRLS. From the moment that I met the mother/daughter co-narrators, Rose and Dottie Krasinsky, I was sucked…
For years, I’ve been hearing about AWP (the Association of Writers Programs conference). I wanted desperately to be on one…
I have always loved the name Marisol. A Spanish name, it is short for Maria del Sol (Maria of the…
I do best with plans at the horizon. I am utterly energized and enthusiastic about them. You should have seen…
This week’s question is about going from being an aspiring writer to being a successful writer. In this arena, I…
Enter the backstabbers… When my novel was on submission and I first got notified by my agent that an acquiring…
Recently, I was riding BART, the Bay Area’s subway, and saw a woman reading a novel. Something about the book…
