Kathleen Alcalá w/ Claudia Castro Luna, TREASURES IN HEAVEN

Elliott Bay Book Company is delighted to host acclaimed author Kathleen Alcalá for a special in-store event to celebrate the re-issue of her novel, Treasures in Heaven, with award-winning poet Claudia Castro Luna. Originally published in 2000 by Chronicle Books, Treasures in Heaven is a story, inspired by true events, that is especially relevant today. The new foreword is written by M. Miriam Herrera, Senior Lecturer, Department of Writing and Language Studies, University of Texas Rio Grande Valley.

About the Book

Treasures in Heaven is a turbulent tale of love and political awakening set in Mexico a century ago. The protagonist, Estela, finds herself swept into a world of politics and entangled in secret relationships. What starts as lessons to educate poor children grows into a school for prostitutes. The school leads to a radical underground newspaper and a dangerous movement for social change that foreshadows the Mexican Revolution. Treasures in Heaven is one of three stand-alone books set in nineteenth-century Mexico and based on Kathleen Alcalá's family's stories-stories both historical and universal. The first two books, Spirits of the Ordinary and The Flower in the Skull, stick pretty closely to the author's family lore, while Treasures in Heaven explores the feminist movement that arose in Mexico.

About the Author

Kathleen Alcalá was born in Compton, California, to Mexican parents, and grew up in San Bernardino. She has a degree in linguistics from Stanford University, an MA in Creative Writing from the University of Washington, and an MFA from the University of New Orleans. A graduate of the Clarion West Science Fiction and Fantasy program, her work embraces both traditional and innovative storytelling techniques. She is the author of six books that include a collection of stories, three novels, a book of essays, and most recently, The Deepest Roots: Finding Food and Community on a Pacific Northwest Island (University of Washington Press, 2016). Recognition includes the Western States Book Award, the Governor’s Writers Award, and two Artist Trust Fellowships. Kathleen has been a guest professor at Seattle University and the University of New Mexico, as well as a writer in residence at Hugo House in Seattle. Until recently, she taught at the Northwest Institute of Literary Arts, a low-residency MFA program. She lives on Bainbridge Island near Seattle, Washington, where she has been designated an Island Treasure.

About the Interlocutor

Claudia Castro Luna is an Academy of American Poets Poet Laureate fellow (2019), WA State Poet Laureate (2018–2021) and Seattle’s inaugural Civic Poet (2015-2018). She is the author of Cipota Under the Moon and Killing Marías both shortlisted for the WA State Book Award in poetry, 2023 and 2018 respectively. She is also the author of One River, A Thousand Voices and the chapbook This City. Her most recent non-fiction is in There’s a Revolution Outside, My Love: Letters from a Crisis (Vintage) and in Memory's Vault: The Poetic Heart of Fort Worden (Empty Bowl). Born in El Salvador, Castro Luna lives in English and Spanish, and she writes and teaches in Seattle on unceded Duwamish lands.

Pre-order your copy of Treasures in Heaven here.

Host or Publisher Elliott Bay Book Company