Seattle Latinx Bookclub - When Language Broke Open

Name: Seattle Latinx Bookclub - When Language Broke Open
Start: 2026-08-15T13:00:00-07:00
End: 2026-08-15T14:30:00-07:00
Location: TBD

Schedule

Sat Aug 15 2026 at 01:00 pm to 02:30 pm

UTC-07:00

Location

TBD | Seattle, WA

Join us in comunidad as we discuss When Langauge Broke Open: An Anthology of Queer and Trans Black Writers of Latin American Descent
About this Event

This month, we'll be discussing When Language Broke Open, which collects the creative offerings of forty-five queer and trans Black writers of Latin American descent who use poetry, prose, and visual art to illustrate Blackness as a geopolitical experience that is always changing. Telling stories of Black Latinidades, this anthology centers the multifaceted realities of the LGBTQ community. As always, our number one priority is creating comunidad. So please feel free to attend even if you didn't get a chance to finish the book this month.

July - September, weather permitting, we aim to host our book club at different Seattle parks around the city. We'll typically decide the exact park at the book club the month before and update the event details here accordingly.

Nos vemos pronto!

Where to find the book

You can find a copy of their book on Bookshop.org here

Purchase through Estelita's Library's Bookshop.org storefront, and you'll support Seattle's local Black/Brown-owned justice-focused community bookstore & lending library.

You can also find the book at Seattle Public Library in print, ebook, and audiobook formats.

About the Book

By exploring themes of memory, care, and futurity, these contributions expand understandings of Blackness in Latin America, the Caribbean, and their U.S.-based diasporas. The volume offers up three central How do queer and/or trans Black writers of Latin American descent address memory? What are the textures of caring, being cared for, and accepting care as Black queer and/or trans people of Latin American descent? And how do queer and trans embodiments help us understand and/or question the past and the present, and construct a Black, queer, and trans future?

The works collected in this anthology encompass a multitude of genres—including poetry, autobiography, short stories, diaries, visual art, and a graphic memoir—and feature the voices of established writers alongside emerging voices. Together, the contributors challenge everything we think we know about gender, sexuality, race, and what it means to experience a livable life.

About the Authors

Alan Pelaez Lopez is a poet, and installation and adornment artist from Oaxaca, Mexico, and an assistant professor at the University of California, Davis. Their debut visual poetry collection, "Intergalactic Travels: poems from a fugitive alien" (The Operating System, 2020), was a finalist for the 2020 International Latino Book Award. They are also the author of the chapbook "to love and mourn in the age of displacement" (Nomadic Press, 2020), and the editor of "When Language Broke Open: An Anthology of Queer and Trans Black Writers of Latin American Descent" (University of Arizona Press, 2023).

2026 Meeting Dates & Book Picks