Celebrating National Hispanic Heritage Month

Tuesday, October 8
4:30 p.m. - Conversation / Q&A
Featuring authors Angie Cruz and Lilliam Rivera
University at Albany
Multi-Purpose Room, Campus Center West

Angie Cruz, a major voice in 21st century American literature, is the author of acclaimed novels that explore the Dominican American experience in New York City’s under-served neighborhoods, including Soledad (2001), Let It Rain Coffee (2005), and Dominicana (2019).

Her newest novel is How Not to Drown in a Glass of Water (paperback, 2023), the tale of a feisty older Dominican woman living in NYC, and her struggles to survive in the face of debt, eviction, internet scams, unemployment, and family strife.

The Los Angeles Times said the book, “will have you laughing line after line, even when you wonder if you should be.” Cruz is also the author of a new children’s picture book set in Washington Heights, Angélica and la Güira (2024).

Lilliam Rivera is a leading YA and middle grade fiction writer is the author her first adult novel, Tiny Threads (Sept. 2024), a supernatural thriller about a young woman from New Jersey who gets her dream job working for a fashion designer in LA – only to discover hideous truths about glamor and beauty lurking in the shadows.

Her newest middle grade novel is Barely Floating (2023), about a 12-year-old girl who channels her rage into synchronized swimming. Booklist named it a “Best Book of 2023.” Other books include We Light Up the Sky (2021), the graphic novel Unearthed: A Jessica Cruz Story (DC Comics, 2021), Never Look Back (2020), and The Education of Margot Sanchez (2017).

Cosponsored by UAlbany’s Black, Indigenous, Latinx and People of Color Faculty Advancement Initiative (BILPOC), Department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures (LLC), CHATS Humanities Labs, Latin American, Caribbean and Latinx Studies (LACS), Center for the Elimination of Minority Health Disparities (CEMHD),UAlbany Libraries, Office of Diversity and Inclusion, and the NYS Writers Institute.