This year’s prose judges are @unpoetaloco.bsky.social, @rekognition.bsky.social, @ilzeduarte.bsky.social, @manjushreethapa.bsky.social, and Peter Constantine. This year’s judges for poetry are Conor Bracken, Dongshin Chang, and Rachel Galvin.

“It is, quite simply, a delight—a lively, candid, and intelligent memoir that will make any reader, translator or otherwise, want to pick up the books she has championed.”– George Henson @unpoetaloco.bsky.social worldliteraturetoday.org/2025/novembe...

I should probably stop taking credit for my former student @michellemirabella.bsky.social, but I'll never stop celebrating and promoting her. literalmagazine.com/too-much-text/

Thank you, Frank Garrett, for your kind words, which mean the world to me.

Middlebury College will shutter the Middlebury Institute at Monterey as of June 2027.

“When you finish reading this beautifully crafted memoir, and I hope you do, my guess is you’ll believe—as I do—that a happy ending, as in the rom-coms Gomez grew up watching, is just over the horizon.” – George Henson @unpoetaloco.bsky.social worldliteraturetoday.org/2025/may/all...

So, is “genre-defying” now a genre?

I'd like to wish my dear Elena a happy 93rd birthday. I took this photo four years ago outside her home in Chimalistac just after she celebrated 89. I'm looking forward to seeing her next week.

Honored to have been invited to brunch tomorrow with Yuko Matsuoka, Japanese translator of the Harry Potter books and Middlebury Institute commencement speaker.

Honored to serve with such esteemed colleagues.

I reviewed @otroedgargomez.bsky.social's gender-bending, genre-defying memoir, Alligator Tears, for @worldlittoday.bsky.social. worldliteraturetoday.org/2025/may/all...

Hace tiempo escribí sobre el enorme poder cultural que tenía #JKRowling antes de volverse francamente extremista, y sobre cómo lo perdió. literalmagazine.com/el-nombre-de...

Peruvian novelist, Nobel laureate, and Boom pioneer Mario Vargas Llosa has died at 89. www.reuters.com/world/americ....

So much to say about the PEN/Faulkner short list. Actually, the list says it all: Indie presses don't publish great literature, and husband/wife competition is the new big thing now.

Cuba's communist government can't feed its people, but it can operate fully stocked supermarkets for "convenient, safe and secure shopping with everything you need in one place" if you have US dollars.

This arrived today, all the way from Tulsa to Pacific Grove, the first issue of Nimrod under Boris Dralyuk’s editorship. Congrats, Boris!

The deadbeat, kleptocratic, COD Cuban regime is doing everything it can to separate Cubans from their US dollars, like opening supermarkets where Cubans can buy food that they can't buy--and couldn't afford--in other outlets with Cuban pesos.

I've been grading all day (grades due tomorrow), and now I'm going to relax and read the last two chapters/essays of Alligator Tears by @otroedgargomez.bsky.social.

Does anyone else want to know who "C" is in @otroedgargomez.bsky.social's memoir Alligator Tears? Or am I the only one who hasn't figured it out?

Just finished the first draft, 97,386 words, of Abel Posse's The Passion according to Eva.

"Yes, I believe that was Eva’s last outing. And like everything about her: It was a farewell in grand style, with her necklace of rubies and diamonds, the escort of Grenadiers, and her ineffable aura of French perfume. All this not to conceal her illness, but rather to throw death off the scent."

"There is nothing worse than having to take drastic measures when you have no drastic explanations or evidence." Abel Posse, The Passion According to Eva.

Quilombificación.

Havana is in blackout, but the Cuban regime thought it a good idea to continue w/ its International Film Festival, allegedly to highlight the resilience of the Cuban people, who have no electricity, no food, & have long since lost faith in the regime's ability to solve the island's problems.

Cubanos, ya les toca. www.cnn.com/world/live-n...

I was today years old when I learned that Elena dedicated something to me.

Nicolás Guillén was arguably Cuba's most celebrated 20th-C poet, founder of the National Union of Writers and Artists & fervent evangelizer of the Cuban Revolution. On Nov 23, the regime murdered his g-grandson Manuel de Jesús Guillén Esplugas, a political prisoner, while in custody.

Three years ago, my niece started Grendel Press, publishing dark fantasy, horror, and romance. Today, she announced that @jgfaherty.bsky.social will be publishing his next novel with Grendel. To say I'm proud would be an understatement.

Calling all translators! We're building a Bluesky starter pack for emerging and established translators—so that we can follow each other and be in community together on the World Wide Web. If you want to be included, add yourself to this thread, and share this post far and wide with your networks :)

A short write-up about my niece Susan and Grendel Press, which she founded and runs. halloweeneverynight.com/indie-horror... grendelpress.com

It's Thanksgiving week, which means it's time to start thinking about where you're going to spend Thanksgiving 2025. Join @andrewmartino.bsky.social and me in Venice, tracing the steps of Abel Posse. For more information, visit: www.edodyssey.com/venicetrip2025 Ci vediamo a Venezia!

Half of Abel Posse's The Passion according to Eva on the page. If all you know about Evita is the one-dimensional character depicted in the musical, the amazing performances of Patti LuPone & Madonna notwithstanding, this novel peels away the layers of what was a complex person and back story.

“Marvelously translated by G. B. Henson, who has committed to rendering Pitol’s oeuvre in English over the past few years[.]” Daniel Saldaña París

"When [Streisand] was figuring out how to play Fanny Brice, she had to look inside herself to find what she shared with Fanny and what she could give from herself that would bring the character to life. This is the actor’s art, and I think the translator shares that art in a different medium." SJL

The incredible @andrewmartino.bsky.social and I are leading a literary tour of Venice in November of 2025, using Abel Posse's A Long Day in Venice, in my translation, as a guide book. Bookies (the literary not betting kind), you can check out our itinerary here: www.edodyssey.com/venicetrip2025

I'm in the process of migrating from Twitter to here. Soon I'll be here full time.

I was already enjoying every paragraph of Dan Sinykin's "What Was Literary Fiction?" in The Nation, then I arrived at the last paragraph where he includes Sergio Pitol among names like Jon Fosse and Can Xue, and I'm almost crying. www.thenation.com/article/cult...