Great visit in Salem as guest of the Salem Literary Festival, whose pick for One Book, One Salem this year was The Cemetery of Untold Stories. The warmth and cariño of the community, filled with Dominicans—¡Qué viva Quisqueya!—made up for the rain and chill and the cold wet feet.

A lovely reading at Phoenix Books in Burlington, VT. We were a convivial group of fans of my old friend Judy Yarnall, who just published her debut collection of poems at 84.

The Center for Fiction is holding a reading group, “Reading Hispaniola: Edwidge Danticat and Julia Alvarez with Dr. Norrell Edwards”. I’m honored to be included in the curriculum along with one of my favorite writers. The link to register is available here: centerforfiction.org/group-worksh...

A lovely and lively afternoon at Strafford VT’s iconic Town House with the Justin Morrill Homestead Speakers Series: What Really Matters. What really matters are gatherings like this in which over a hundred community members and friends came together.

A delightful evening at the 36th Annual American Literature Association Conference. Jim Nagel, Professor Emeritus at the University of Georgia, was a gracious host to a wonderful, engaged audience of scholars, graduate students, and teachers from as far away as South Korea and Ukraine.

@wordupbooks.bsky.social will be hosting Ana Martínez and Heather Hennes as they introduce their English translation of Alive in Their Garden: The True Story of the Mirabal Sisters and Their Fight for Freedom with Minou Tavárez Mirabal on May 22nd. You can RSVP here: withfriends.co/event/232900...

The Cemetery of Untold Stories was just released in Italian, translated by Marta Barone and published by Giunti Editore/Romanzo Bompiani. I'm a big fan of the tag line on the back: "There are stories even in silence." www.bompiani.it/catalogo/il-...

And something that has NEVER happened before and will NEVER happen again, one of the women in the audience asked me to sign her book to “Julia Alvarez.” I said, of course, I’ll sign my name, but what’s yours?

Rainy and chilly Sunday in Vermont but a warm and lovely group of folks at @northshirebooks.bsky.social's annual Booktopia festival—don’t we all need a utopia right about now and what could be better than one stocked with books?—

I was named poet laureate of Weybridge with Jay Parini several years ago. I decided that— like the national P.L.s— I should DO something, not just sit on laurels and let poetry languish. Thus the Weybridge Haiku Poetry Contest was born. www.sevendaysvt.com/arts-culture... @sevendaysvt.bsky.social

More new titles in the Free Student Library: 🦋 "In the Time of Butterflies" - Julia Alvarez (@writerjalvarez.bsky.social) 🔥 "Little Fires Everywhere" - Celeste Ng (@pronounced-ing.bsky.social) 🗺️ "The Lost Continent" - Bill Bryson 🐤 "The Goldfinch" - Donna Tartt #WorldBookDay #reading #literature

A shoutout for my longtime friend, Greg Djanikian, whose New & Selected poems, Nostalgia for the Future, was just published by Green Writers Press. Greg was my classmate at Syracuse University in MA in Creative Program. I’ve loved his poems ever since.

I want to give a shoutout to this truly dazzling gift I received from my former student, Vendela Vida www.vendelavida.com/about. Remembering that her old teacher loves Leaves of Grass, Vendela sent me the new deluxe two-volume edition of the poem just published by @mcsweeneys.net.

Heartened to be quoted in this article from the United Church of Christ, and its call to action; “Now is the time to show up for justice, kindness, and love and get into good trouble.” www.google.com/url?rct=j&sa...

With the paperback of The Cemetery of Untold Stories coming out this week, I’m thinking fondly on the launch event with Elizabeth Acevedo, Angie Cruz and Yariana Torres– extraordinary writers on an extraordinary night hosted by @wordupbooks.bsky.social and photographed by @eabreuvisuals.bsky.social.

Happy birthday to the paperback edition of The Cemetery of Untold Stories, out on April 1st in time for spring. Plant one on your bookshelf and on the bookshelves of your friends and book clubs!

Mariposa’s second annual Global Studies semester was a huge success! This year, the entire organization focused on the continent of Africa, enabling the Mariposa girls to learn about the history, languages, cultures, food, music, and traditions of various countries.

I'm thrilled to share that this Thursday, the 27th, AARP will be hosting a virtual screening of "Julia Alvarez: A Life (Re)Imagined" at 8pm ET. I've been so touched by the love for this film and hope you will join the screening. The link to register can be found here: local.aarp.org/vcc-event/mo...

What a pleasure to attend the 2025 NeMLA convention as a keynote speaker. Dr. Alfonso-Short gave me a warm introduction, and the audience was lively and welcoming. I always love talking to teachers and to readers, and NeMLA conference abounds in them.

Loved this mention of Scheherazade, and storytelling through all mediums. www.dailygazette.com/nippertown/m...

Participating in this today— I hope you will too.

The Mariposa girls took their Blues poems home and then created their own revised poems and recited them. Only one on this video, but very impressed by how they took the prompt and ran with it! And a stellar recitation.

Another visit to Mariposa DR Foundation: Tricia, founder and president, welcomed me and Patria, owner of Patria Libre Bookshop in Puerto Plata, and granddaughter of Patria Mirabal. We stood in front of the classrooms named after her abuela.

The Mariposas have been studying all the continents, each semester they focus on a different one, including some sample of the literatures, the music, the cuisine (they make the recipes in their teaching-kitchen), the dances, visual arts, a total immersion.

The Cemetery of Untold Stories - out in paperback on April 1st, 2025. Thank you for your continued amor and support for stories. More than ever now we need them to inspire us and connect us to each other.

I had the pleasure of visiting Casa de las Artes in Sosua with my cousins and receiving a warm welcome (and the gift of a painting!) by the president of the foundation, visual artist, Adolfo Faringthon, as well as local writers and artists.

Always a treat to be with the Mariposas at Mariposa DR Foundation. I gave a workshop to the older girls on pinning wings on our dreams. Wings on dreams of studying to be orthodontists, doctors, marine biologists, engineers, lawyers, and two writers. May they all fly as high as they dream of going.

To finish yesterday’s post, Marte, in the same heritage as Elizabeth’s Acevedo’s The Poet X, is a fierce, proud, no-B.S.-er, a warrior woman poet.

To continue my reading recommendations, it's long been my practice to start my writing day reading poetry, and every January I make an annual "reading pilgrimage" by rereading T.S. Eliot's The Four Quartets.

When I'm between books, listless and a little lost, what keeps me nourished is my reading. I've been enjoying a feast recently. Let me share the goods:

As the year closes, I'm touched to see The Cemetery of Untold Stories on best of 2024 lists, including @npr.org's Books We Love and @audiofilemagazine.bsky.social's Best Audiobooks of 2024. Thank you to all who lent an ear to TCOUS, and in doing so, gave it life.

Thinking of all the Mariposas, including the living ones, male & female, who continue to inspire us, every day and especially today, International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women.

Thrilled to see THE CEMETERY OF UNTOLD STORIES by @writerjalvarez.bsky.social on @npr.org's Books We Love list!