• Who We Are
    • Meet the Team
    • Episodes
    • Author Interviews
  • Blog
  • Awards
    • 2021 Challenge
    • 2020 Challenge
    • 2019 Challenge
    • 2018 Challenge
Menu

reading women

Street Address
City, State, Zip
Phone Number
Reclaim the Bookshelf | read the world

Your Custom Text Here

reading women

  • About
    • Who We Are
    • Meet the Team
  • Podcast
    • Episodes
    • Author Interviews
  • Blog
  • Awards
  • Reading Challenge
    • 2021 Challenge
    • 2020 Challenge
    • 2019 Challenge
    • 2018 Challenge

Q&A | Dahlma Llanos-Figueroa

June 12, 2021 Reading Women
Q&A Banner Template-2.png

How and when did you begin writing fiction?

I wrote my first short story in high school. When it got published in the school magazine, I didn't know how, or when, but knew I would someday be a 'real' writer.

How did Daughters of the Stone come to being?

It evolved over a long period of time for many reasons. One important reason was the absence of authentic stories about Afro-Puerto Ricans in American literature. I wanted to tell our stories, our way. When I started, I thought I was going to write memoir. Very soon it became evident that I would need the freedom of fiction to include the many stories that had not been told. It wasn't about me. It was about a whole group of people who had been erased from our national dialogue.

There are five generations of women in this Afro-Puerto-Rican novel. Who was your favorite to write - Fela, Mate, Concha, Elena, or Carisa?

There is no one favorite. I love each for different reasons. I love Fela because she is so self-contained and self-directed regardless of what is happening around her. I love Mati because of her strength and her steely belief in her way of knowing the world. When Concha rejects tradition in favor of modernity, she is left hanging in a void and has to fight to come back to the world. Elena is a 20th century woman/pioneer who seeks newer pastures for herself and her children in a world which challenges everything she believes in. Carisa is driven by her creative force and by the voices of the ancestors who guide her in her search for self-actualization. When she finds no support in the world she has come to think of as home, she finds the only way to move forward is to go back.

This novel is clearly a story about women. Were you conscious of what themes you wanted to explore before you began writing? If so, what theme would you like the readers to grasp the most?

I don't map out my novels. I go where my characters take me. In Daughters of the Stone, I wanted to explore how the past acts as a foundation for supporting the present and building towards the future. I also wanted to explore art, and especially storytelling, as healing and guiding mechanisms in our society.

How do you describe the symbolism behind the stone?

I let the reader find her/his own best answers to this one. It could represent ancestral knowledge or history or strength or tradition or endurance or continuity or all of these. I hope each reader finds the significance that best touches that individual's personal journey.

Explain the importance of embroidery at the beginning of the novel?

All enslaved workers were valued not by their individuality but by the worth of their labor. On one level, the women were valuable commodities because they added to their mistress's income and reputation. But on a much deeper level, the women explore their creativity and feed their aesthetic nature becoming more than just workers, but artists in their own right. It gives them a stamp of individuality, a definition of self within a system that was dehumanizing to the point of erasure.

How have your roots played a role in telling the story of Daughters of the Stone?

Being a daughter of very strong Afro-Puerto Rican rural women, I could never understand the stereotype of the submissive, defeated woman who had no options and no power. I was surrounded by monumentally powerful and talented women who never got a chance to showcase their potential outside their homes and their communities. I got a good taste of it as a child in my South Bronx community. When I was sent to Puerto Rico during my formative years, ties to the past were solidified and I had a better understanding of where I came from and what gifts had been bequeathed to me. Those women who came before me didn't have the option of sharing their stories in public, but thanks to their sacrifices, I could, and I do share the stories with a much broader audience. Writing gave me a vehicle for bringing readers into the world I grew up in.

_DOS_COVER_Final.jpeg

How does community play an important role in Daughters of the Stone?

In a world where families are suddenly and inexplicably separated, where life and death can come at any time, the community holds continuity and safety. Fela loses her mother but gains Tia Josefa. When Concha is unable to function under the weight of her sense of guilt and loss, her daughter Elena leans on the wisdom and traditions learned from her grandmother Mati, to get them all through difficult times. Carisa finds a whole circle of old women to guide her back into the stories of the past which give her the foundation for seeking out the future. Later, Maria Luisa guides Carisa in her quest for self-identity. In times of greatest need, the community steps in when needed.

How does religious spirituality connect to Afro-Puerto-Rican culture in the novel?

The enslaved community has no material wealth, not even having ownership of their own bodies. They can lose their children, their homes, their very lives. They often lose their physical abilities which is the measure of their only value in their masters' eyes. But their spiritual beliefs and inherent gifts sustain them. They cling to that which cannot be taken away and that gives them the strength to overcome all that they have lost. Spirituality and memory are the bedrock of their existence. Storytelling is the conduit for passing on those qualities that will allow them to endure.

The elements of magical realism in the novel are perfectly infused in reality? Was that a conscious idea? If so, why?

When physical reality becomes unbearable, then an alternative is needed. My characters don't escape from objective reality, they simply exist in a more complex worldview than is the norm in the world they are forced to inhabit. Their perception of the world goes beyond that of the Western imaginary. Whether you call it magic or mysticism or religion or spirituality, it is that which binds the characters and allows for their survival in spite of the violence of their lives.

What has Daughters of the Stone taught you about yourself and writing?

I have come to know that what I used to call being blocked, is actually a very deep and active period of story development. I am often up at 3 or 4am for no particular reason other than journaling, listening to the monologue of my mind. My writing begins with dreaming, journaling and meditation. The seeds for my next narrative are germinating long before the actual writing of the novel. I now recognize when the book begins to take on its internal life. As the work begins to take shape in my journal notes, I begin to have a more conscious intent, and only then do I turn to the computer. At this point, I am guided by my characters and the world they inhabit. The short answer to your question is, I have learned to trust my creative voice and my intuition.

What advice do you have to give to budding writers?

Read, read, read. Read everything and pay attention. What works for you? What doesn't? Decide which writers you love and learn from what they put on paper. Equally important, find those you don't love and learn what not to do.


Dahlma Llanos-Figueroa_J Lessuck Photography-2.png

About

Dahlma Llanos-Figueroa was born in Puerto Rico and raised in New York City. She is a product of the Puerto Rican communities on the island and in the South Bronx. As a child she was sent to live with her grandparents in Puerto Rico where she was introduced to the culture of rural Puerto Rico, including the storytelling that came naturally to the women in her family, especially the older women. Much of her work is based on her experiences during this time. Her short stories appear in anthologies and literary magazines such as Breaking Ground: Anthology of Puerto Rican Women Writers in New York 1980-2012, Growing Up Girl, Afro-Hispanic Review, Pleaides, Latino Book Review, Label Me Latina/o, and Kweli Journal. Dahlma’s second novel, A Woman of Endurance will be released by Amistad in Spring 2022 in both English and Spanish.

Buy the Book

Website | Twitter | Instagram


In Author Q&A, Reading Women Award Tags Dahlma Llanos-Figueroa, Didi

Q&A | Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé

June 7, 2021 Reading Women
Q&A Banner Template.png

Have you read ACE OF SPADES by Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé? It is pitched as Gossip Girl meets Get Out in the dark academia book of your dreams, featuring QPOC characters! I was so lucky to have the opportunity to interview Faridah in our most recent newsletter. We talked about systemic racism, Nigerian folklore, Paramore, and High School Musical. - Joce

Read more
In Author Q&A, Reading Women Award Tags Joce, Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé

Q&A | Megha Majumdar

September 19, 2020 Reading Women
Q&A Banner Template.png

A Burning by Megha Majumdar is America’s new favourite novel set in India. This raging debut is an illuminating read on the current state of Indian society and politics, which is experiencing dark times under the pressure and influence of right-wing extremism. Modern democracies are becoming corrupt under fascist leaders, making this a story that brings out unmissable parallels between India and the US. Majumdar’s novel has received wide recognition (which it deserves!) and was most recently longlisted for the JCB Prize for Literature, one of India’s prestigious literary prizes. Our co-host Sumaiyya asked Megha a few burning questions we’ve all been thinking about!

Read more
In Author Q&A, Reading Women Award Tags Megha Majumdar, A Burning, Sumaiyya Naseem

Q&A | Tara June Winch

June 5, 2020 Reading Women
1.png

Tara June Winch is the Wiradjuri author of Swallow the Air and After the Carnage, and her latest release The Yield is due to be released in the US on 2 June 2020 (following its 2019 release in Australia). It has achieved successes in prestigious literary prizes including being shortlisted for the 2020 Stella Prize, winning Book of the Year, the Christina Stead Prize for Fiction and People’s Choice Award at the 2020 New South Wales Premier’s Literary Awards, and it is currently longlisted for the 2020 Miles Franklin Literary Award.

Our co-host Jaclyn loved this book and is overjoyed that many more international readers will now be able to read this one too. The novel is told in three voices and timelines—in a dictionary being compiled by Poppy Gondiwindi, in the letters of a German Lutheran missionary, and the protagonist, August Gondiwindi, in the contemporary timeline.

Read more
In Author Q&A, Reading Women Award Tags Tara June Winch, Jaclyn Masters, The Yield

Q&A | Yara Rodrigues Fowler

January 31, 2020 Reading Women
Q&A Banner Template.png

Stubborn Archivist by Yara Rodrigues Fowler is a story that takes place in Britain and Brazil, following an unnamed narrator as she navigates her ethnic and cultural identity and a sense of belonging to both cultures. While the novel is narrated primarily from the from the point of view of the protagonist, other female voices, members of the narrator’s family, also narrate their stories to create a wider picture of a family. Stubborn Archivist is one of those novels that you can’t easily put a label on: to some Stubborn Archivist may be a #MeToo novel while to others it’s a mother-daughter story or a bicultural identity narrative; the undeniable link is, of course, the female protagonist whose voice comes through beautifully. The novel ends mid-sentence, perhaps indicative of the unfinished nature of her life story. We spoke to Yara Rodrigues Fowler about her brilliant debut and the ways it pushes the boundaries of storytelling. - Sumaiyya Naseem

Read more
In Author Q&A, Reading Women Award Tags sumaiyya naseem, Yara Rodrigues Fowler, stubborn archivist

Q&A | Layla AlAmmar

January 10, 2020 Reading Women
Q&A Banner Template.png

The Pact We Made by Layla AlAmmar is a novel that brings a much needed voice from the Middle East. Set in Kuwait, the narrative depicts the dualities in the experience of being a modern woman in a patriarchal system. In the story, Dahlia is living two lives; as a working woman in the outside world, and a daughter whose parents are bound by the dictates of patriarchy. As she edges closer to the age of thirty, she is faced with the brutal societal expectation to get married, just as her other friends have, while also dealing with past trauma that she hasn’t fully come to terms with. Layla AlAmmar’s novel is a brilliant and brave new story from Kuwait that offers a wider, more nuanced and complex picture of living in urban cities of the Gulf. We spoke to Layla AlAmmar about her novel, writing in Kuwait and her character’s distinct interest in art. - Sumaiyya Naseem

Read more
In Author Q&A, Reading Women Award Tags sumaiyya naseem, The Pact We Made, Layla AlAmmar

Q&A | Marivi Soliven

May 17, 2019 Reading Women
Q&A Banner Template-2.png

In The Mango Bride, Marivi Soliven illustrates the beauty of the Philippines while also covering issues such as immigration, domestic abuse, and class. In this novel, Soliven uses her real life experience as a phone hotline translator and incorporates it into this book in a thoughtful yet devastating way. Told as a dual narrative between two women from different economic backgrounds, this story explores each of their journeys immigrating to the United States and the shared history that unravels between them. This novel is also a great starting point to learn more about Filipino culture and understanding the dynamics of class in their society. - Sachi Argabright 

Read more
In Author Q&A, Reading Women Award Tags the mango bride, marivi soliven

Q&A | Etaf Rum

April 19, 2019 Reading Women
Q&A Banner Template.png

In A Woman Is No Man, Etaf Rum tackles the sensitive and devastating problem of domestic abuse and women’s oppression in Palestinian culture. This is a topic that Rum admits she was scared to approach because it would upset her community, a challenge she feels female Arab writers often face. In this remarkable novel, Rum draws from her own experiences and writes an unflinching multi-generational story that confronts the reality of the female experience within a patriarchal culture that is also suffering from the unaddressed and neglected trauma of Al Nakba. Rum’s novel is also the story of one young woman’s journey of defying the limited path chosen for her by working towards claiming agency for herself. - Sumaiyya Naseem

Read more
In Author Q&A, Reading Women Award Tags etaf rum, a woman is no man, sumaiyya naseem

Interview | Rebecca Traister

December 12, 2018 Reading Women
Copy of Author Interview_ Banner Template.png

We talk with Rebecca Traister about her latest book Good and Mad: The Revolutionary Power of Women’s Anger. Rebecca Traister’s book All the Single Ladies won the 2016 Reading Women Award for nonfiction.

Read more
In Author Interview, Reading Women Award Tags good and mad, rebecca traister, reading women award

Q&A | Claire G. Coleman

November 30, 2018 Reading Women
Q&A Banner Template.png

We had the special opportunity to chat with Claire G. Coleman about her debut novel Terra Nullius, which was shortlisted for this year’s Reading Women Award for fiction. Coleman’s skillful use of science fiction elements enhances her story, causing readers to recognize the alien as something all too familiar. Terra Nullius possesses a universal impact and stands as one of the best novels addressing colonialism that we’ve ever read.

Read more
In Author Q&A, Reading Women Award Tags claire g coleman, terra nullius
Older Posts →
Blog RSS
Join the discussion on our Goodreads group!

Join the discussion on our Goodreads group!

Check Out Our Store!

IMG_5913.JPG
Shop

Archive

  • Show Notes 140
  • Author Interview 106
  • Author Q&A 39
  • Reading Women Award 32
  • Articles 18
  • Guest Post 12
  • Announcements 5
  • Wrap Up 15
  • Meet the Authors 15

Kendra's BookTube Channel

Jaclyn’s BookTube Channel

Joce’s BookTube Channel

Disclaimer | Newsletter | Contact

Copyright © 2021 Reading Women, LLC