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Julia Alvarez

@writerjalvarez.bsky.social
299 followers 43 following 76 posts

Writer of novels, essays, books for young readers, & poetry. THE CEMETERY OF UNTOLD STORIES available now: linktr.ee/jlalvarez

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Julia Alvarez @writerjalvarez.bsky.social · 03/12/2025
Heartened to be included in the new Sojourners Anthology, titled, Light for the Way: Seeking Simplicity, Connection, and Repair in a Broken World, coming out January 13th. The collection feels especially timely right now in sustaining our resistance and repairing our world. sojo.net/light
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Julia Alvarez @writerjalvarez.bsky.social · 12/11/2025
Support them if you can. We need to preserve these legacy institutions listening at the grassroots for all our songs.
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Julia Alvarez @writerjalvarez.bsky.social · 12/11/2025
…and by doing so made me believe I had something to say, that someone was listening. They’ve been doing this for the past 50 years, a struggle at times to stay afloat, operating on shoestring budgets, a labor of love and of fierce and talented muse editors and volunteers.
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Julia Alvarez @writerjalvarez.bsky.social · 12/11/2025
Back when Calyx was founded (1976), publication wasn’t a given for women of color or with divergent perspectives. Glass ceilings still existed in the literary pantheons. Calyx was one of the first magazines to publish my poetry (1982)…
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Julia Alvarez @writerjalvarez.bsky.social · 12/11/2025
I was honored to to judge the @calyxpress.bsky.social 2025 Margarita Donnelly Prize for Prose Writing, named in honor of one of Calyx’s founders, a magazine that celebrates diversity and excellence in women’s literature and arts. Read the winners work here: www.calyxpress.org/margarita-do...
calyxpress.org
MD Prize 2025 - CALYX
Read the winning short story from the 2025 Margarita Donnelly Prize for Prose Writing: "Concerto" by Bryce M. O'Tierney.
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Julia Alvarez @writerjalvarez.bsky.social · 06/11/2025
My sincerest congratulations to Ian Baucom, 18th President of Middlebury College. It was a pleasure to speak at his inauguration, and celebrate the College that nurtured my soul as a student and teacher.
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Julia Alvarez @writerjalvarez.bsky.social · 30/10/2025
THE BIG M: 13 Writers Take Back the Story of Menopause. We are here to lock arms and say embodied storytelling matters. We are not the story they made of us. These are new stories, told on our terms, a long overdue reckoning. Preorder here: www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/lidia...
hachettebookgroup.com
The Big M
For readers of Kink and What My Mother and I Don't Talk About, an anthology from a bestselling author that redefines the way we think about menopause—"leav...
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Julia Alvarez @writerjalvarez.bsky.social · 02/10/2025
Latino Public Broadcasting will be screening “Julia Alvarez: A Life Reimagined,” an American Masters film, tomorrow on PBS at 10 pm ET. I’m forever honored by this documentary and invite you to watch.
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Julia Alvarez @writerjalvarez.bsky.social · 11/09/2025
I didn’t want to go home, this place is magical. If I go to heaven—the jury is still out on this one—one of its neighborhoods will be Salem!
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Julia Alvarez @writerjalvarez.bsky.social · 11/09/2025
A visit also to an exhibit of Diablos Ecológicos, based on those traditional “devils,” (Diablos Cojuelos) come out on the streets of the D.R. during carnival. Luis Riveras makes his with the community using recycled materials.
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Julia Alvarez @writerjalvarez.bsky.social · 11/09/2025
Adding to the fun was a visit to Casa de Abuela installation, where we met the curators as well as the director of Punto Urban Art Museum, responsible for all the murals around the neighborhood on subsidized housing.
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Julia Alvarez @writerjalvarez.bsky.social · 11/09/2025
My conversation on stage with Dr. Keja Valens was like a meeting of old friends to share our stories, told and untold. I also highly recommend picking up a copy of her book, “Culinary Colonialism, Caribbean Cookbooks, and Recipes of National Independence.”
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Julia Alvarez @writerjalvarez.bsky.social · 11/09/2025
The Salem rep, Manny Cruz, showed up to give me an official welcome—he shares the same name and surname as one of the protagonists in my novel!
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Julia Alvarez @writerjalvarez.bsky.social · 11/09/2025
Great visit in Salem as guest of the Salem Literary Festival, whose pick for One Book, One Salem this year was The Cemetery of Untold Stories. The warmth and cariño of the community, filled with Dominicans—¡Qué viva Quisqueya!—made up for the rain and chill and the cold wet feet.
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Julia Alvarez @writerjalvarez.bsky.social · 06/09/2025
An added blessing, which I ascribe to Judy’s poems, the skies finally opened and sent down rain to ease our drought on our way home from the reading.
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Julia Alvarez @writerjalvarez.bsky.social · 06/09/2025
I’ve been reading and admiring her poems for years and so glad The Central Eye is now available to order at your local bookstore or at www.onionriverpress.com/books/p/the-... so I can share my affection for her work with others.
onionriverpress.com
The Central Eye — Onion River Press
Judith Yarnall "For years I've considered myself lucky to be a reader and admirer of Judy Yarnall's poems. Yarnall brings the luminous small moments embedded in the ordinary to light-fleeting moment...
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Julia Alvarez @writerjalvarez.bsky.social · 06/09/2025
A lovely reading at Phoenix Books in Burlington, VT. We were a convivial group of fans of my old friend Judy Yarnall, who just published her debut collection of poems at 84.
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Julia Alvarez @writerjalvarez.bsky.social · 02/09/2025
The Center for Fiction is holding a reading group, “Reading Hispaniola: Edwidge Danticat and Julia Alvarez with Dr. Norrell Edwards”. I’m honored to be included in the curriculum along with one of my favorite writers. The link to register is available here: centerforfiction.org/group-worksh...
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Julia Alvarez @writerjalvarez.bsky.social · 12/08/2025
The occasion was a reading and conversation about my novel The Cemetery of Untold Stories. True to the themes of the novel, we created community by listening and talking about stories. “We are all in this story together,” as one of the characters notes.
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Julia Alvarez @writerjalvarez.bsky.social · 12/08/2025
A lovely and lively afternoon at Strafford VT’s iconic Town House with the Justin Morrill Homestead Speakers Series: What Really Matters. What really matters are gatherings like this in which over a hundred community members and friends came together.
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Julia Alvarez @writerjalvarez.bsky.social · 26/05/2025
We also visited the Dominican Consulate in Boston with our friend Leonidas Valenzuela where we were warmly welcomed by Yadires Nova-Salcedo, Dominican Cultural Liaison in New England, and Bethania Rodríguez, Vice Consul.
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Julia Alvarez @writerjalvarez.bsky.social · 26/05/2025
A delightful evening at the 36th Annual American Literature Association Conference. Jim Nagel, Professor Emeritus at the University of Georgia, was a gracious host to a wonderful, engaged audience of scholars, graduate students, and teachers from as far away as South Korea and Ukraine.
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Julia Alvarez @writerjalvarez.bsky.social · 19/05/2025
Although I’m unable to go due to prior commitments, Dedé’s memoir is essential reading. Attached are a couple of pictures during her and Minou’s visits to Vermont many years ago, in my garden. I hope you will attend.
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Julia Alvarez @writerjalvarez.bsky.social · 19/05/2025
@wordupbooks.bsky.social will be hosting Ana Martínez and Heather Hennes as they introduce their English translation of Alive in Their Garden: The True Story of the Mirabal Sisters and Their Fight for Freedom with Minou Tavárez Mirabal on May 22nd. You can RSVP here: withfriends.co/event/232900...
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Julia Alvarez @writerjalvarez.bsky.social · 17/05/2025
The Cemetery of Untold Stories was just released in Italian, translated by Marta Barone and published by Giunti Editore/Romanzo Bompiani. I'm a big fan of the tag line on the back: "There are stories even in silence." www.bompiani.it/catalogo/il-...
bompiani.it
Il cimitero delle storie non dette - Bompiani
Il sito ufficiale della casa editrice Bompiani: le novità in uscita, il catalogo, approfondimenti e appuntamenti con gli autori.
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Julia Alvarez @writerjalvarez.bsky.social · 06/05/2025
And she is indeed Julia Alvarez. She said when she would visit her mom who lived in Washington Heights and give her name, Dominicans would tell her how proud they were of her work!
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Julia Alvarez @writerjalvarez.bsky.social · 06/05/2025
And something that has NEVER happened before and will NEVER happen again, one of the women in the audience asked me to sign her book to “Julia Alvarez.” I said, of course, I’ll sign my name, but what’s yours?
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Julia Alvarez @writerjalvarez.bsky.social · 06/05/2025
Rachel, the events coordinator, and owner, Nicole, were welcoming and generous, and my on-stage conversation with Megan Mayhew Bergman was lively and fun. Megan is an amazing talent— I loved her latest collection of stories, How Strange A Season, as well as her previous, Almost Famous Women.
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Julia Alvarez @writerjalvarez.bsky.social · 06/05/2025
Rainy and chilly Sunday in Vermont but a warm and lovely group of folks at @northshirebooks.bsky.social's annual Booktopia festival—don’t we all need a utopia right about now and what could be better than one stocked with books?—
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Julia Alvarez @writerjalvarez.bsky.social · 24/04/2025
I was named poet laureate of Weybridge with Jay Parini several years ago. I decided that— like the national P.L.s— I should DO something, not just sit on laurels and let poetry languish. Thus the Weybridge Haiku Poetry Contest was born. www.sevendaysvt.com/arts-culture... @sevendaysvt.bsky.social
sevendaysvt.com
Weybridge Haiku Contest Entrants Share Poems for Our Times
The annual poetry competition, cofounded by author Julia Alvarez, drew 420 entries from across Vermont, many reflecting on turbulent modern life.
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Reposted by Julia Alvarez
U of R English Department @urenglishdept.bsky.social · 23/04/2025
More new titles in the Free Student Library: 🦋 "In the Time of Butterflies" - Julia Alvarez (@writerjalvarez.bsky.social) 🔥 "Little Fires Everywhere" - Celeste Ng (@pronounced-ing.bsky.social) 🗺️ "The Lost Continent" - Bill Bryson 🐤 "The Goldfinch" - Donna Tartt #WorldBookDay #reading #literature
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Julia Alvarez @writerjalvarez.bsky.social · 21/04/2025
This poetry volume, his eighth, collects poems from his previous books as well as new poems. This book gives added radiance to National Poetry Month from one of my literary stars! gregorydjanikian.com
gregorydjanikian.com
Gregory Djanikian
Imagine if all the cut-down treescould dream the forest back to soundness,every bee retrieve its queenin the kingdom of honey. --from "Without Us"Imagine if all the cut-down treescould dream the fores...
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Julia Alvarez @writerjalvarez.bsky.social · 21/04/2025
He went on to publish several books as well as direct the Creative Writing Program at U. of Penn. We shared coming to this country and to English at a young age—Greg from an Armenian family resettled in Egypt.
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Julia Alvarez @writerjalvarez.bsky.social · 21/04/2025
A shoutout for my longtime friend, Greg Djanikian, whose New & Selected poems, Nostalgia for the Future, was just published by Green Writers Press. Greg was my classmate at Syracuse University in MA in Creative Program. I’ve loved his poems ever since.
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Julia Alvarez @writerjalvarez.bsky.social · 15/04/2025
As if that didn’t keep her busy enough, she is also a founding editor of The Believer. My very old paperback edition, held together by rubber band and filled with classroom notes, can now retire. Even with winter out the window, gazing on this gift, the spring of gratitude floods the heart.
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Julia Alvarez @writerjalvarez.bsky.social · 15/04/2025
Not only is she a superb novelist, but she and her husband, Dave Eggers, were founding members of 826 Valencia, a writing center for youth in the Bay Area, the original for kindred centers now widespread in cities around the country. www.826valencia.org
826valencia.org
Home | 826 Valencia
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Julia Alvarez @writerjalvarez.bsky.social · 15/04/2025
I want to give a shoutout to this truly dazzling gift I received from my former student, Vendela Vida www.vendelavida.com/about. Remembering that her old teacher loves Leaves of Grass, Vendela sent me the new deluxe two-volume edition of the poem just published by @mcsweeneys.net.
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Julia Alvarez @writerjalvarez.bsky.social · 07/04/2025
Heartened to be quoted in this article from the United Church of Christ, and its call to action; “Now is the time to show up for justice, kindness, and love and get into good trouble.” www.google.com/url?rct=j&sa...
google.com
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Julia Alvarez @writerjalvarez.bsky.social · 05/04/2025
Today is Maya Angelou’s birthday, who once said “There is no agony like bearing an untold story inside of you.” I hope my story inspires the untold stories in all of us.
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Julia Alvarez @writerjalvarez.bsky.social · 05/04/2025
With the paperback of The Cemetery of Untold Stories coming out this week, I’m thinking fondly on the launch event with Elizabeth Acevedo, Angie Cruz and Yariana Torres– extraordinary writers on an extraordinary night hosted by @wordupbooks.bsky.social and photographed by @eabreuvisuals.bsky.social.
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Julia Alvarez @writerjalvarez.bsky.social · 01/04/2025
Happy birthday to the paperback edition of The Cemetery of Untold Stories, out on April 1st in time for spring. Plant one on your bookshelf and on the bookshelves of your friends and book clubs!
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Julia Alvarez @writerjalvarez.bsky.social · 30/03/2025
Mariposa’s second annual Global Studies semester was a huge success! This year, the entire organization focused on the continent of Africa, enabling the Mariposa girls to learn about the history, languages, cultures, food, music, and traditions of various countries.
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Julia Alvarez @writerjalvarez.bsky.social · 26/03/2025
I'm thrilled to share that this Thursday, the 27th, AARP will be hosting a virtual screening of "Julia Alvarez: A Life (Re)Imagined" at 8pm ET. I've been so touched by the love for this film and hope you will join the screening. The link to register can be found here: local.aarp.org/vcc-event/mo...
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Julia Alvarez @writerjalvarez.bsky.social · 17/03/2025
What a pleasure to attend the 2025 NeMLA convention as a keynote speaker. Dr. Alfonso-Short gave me a warm introduction, and the audience was lively and welcoming. I always love talking to teachers and to readers, and NeMLA conference abounds in them.
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Julia Alvarez @writerjalvarez.bsky.social · 08/03/2025
Loved this mention of Scheherazade, and storytelling through all mediums. www.dailygazette.com/nippertown/m...
dailygazette.com
Talking books, dreams, folk showcases with Schenectady's Buggy Jive - Upstate Beat
When Bryan Thomas — known musically as Buggy Jive — performed for the Capital Region Thomas Edison Music Awards at Proctors in 2022, the song he wrote for the occasion was “Make Me Water.”
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Julia Alvarez @writerjalvarez.bsky.social · 28/02/2025
Participating in this today— I hope you will too.
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Julia Alvarez @writerjalvarez.bsky.social · 24/02/2025
The Mariposa girls took their Blues poems home and then created their own revised poems and recited them. Only one on this video, but very impressed by how they took the prompt and ran with it! And a stellar recitation.
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Julia Alvarez @writerjalvarez.bsky.social · 23/02/2025
The new generations of Mariposas are getting launched. Look out, future!
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Julia Alvarez @writerjalvarez.bsky.social · 23/02/2025
Another visit to Mariposa DR Foundation: Tricia, founder and president, welcomed me and Patria, owner of Patria Libre Bookshop in Puerto Plata, and granddaughter of Patria Mirabal. We stood in front of the classrooms named after her abuela.
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Julia Alvarez @writerjalvarez.bsky.social · 19/02/2025
We spent an afternoon reading Langston Hughes in translation, writing group Blues poems, and then the girls each wrote her own Blues—first poem they’d ever written!
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