Latinx & Libros: challenges and successes in the world of books

"Latinx & Libros: challenges and successes in the world of books"
Wednesday, October 14th - 6 PM

As part of the New York Public Library’s Hispanic Heritage Month 2020 celebration, join us for a panel where our guests will discuss books and literature as Latinx persons and from their various standpoints. As authors, librarians, event organizers and community conveners, the panelists will speak about their experiences, challenges, and successes.
 

Alexandra Torrealba was born and raised in Caracas, Venezuela and is the Associate Editor at Vintage Español, Penguin Random House’s exclusively Spanish-language imprint. She received her M.S. in Journalism from Columbia University in 2014 and has worked in print & online media and book publishing ever since. She is most passionate about editing works in translation, and would drop anything she’s doing to re-read a Latin American classic. 

Libbhy Romero is the World Languages Collections Coordinator at BookOps, the shared technical services organization of Brooklyn Public Library & New York Public Library. She has written articles in Library Journal on collection development of Spanish language materials. She is a former REFORMA Northeast Chapter President and recipient of the 2016 Pura Belpré Librarian of the Year award of the REFORMA Northeast Chapter. 

Roberto Lovato is an educator, journalist and writer based at The Writers Grotto in San Francisco, California. He is the author of Unforgetting: A Memoir of Family, Migration, Gangs and Revolution in the Americas (Harper Collins). Lovato is also a Co-Founder of #DignidadLiteraria, the movement advocating for equity and literary justice for the more than 60 million Latinx persons left off of bookshelves in the United States and out of the national dialogue. A recipient of a reporting grant from the Pulitzer Center, Lovato has reported on numerous issues—violence, terrorism, the drug war and the refugee crisis—from Mexico, Venezuela, El Salvador, Dominican Republic, Haiti, France and the United States, among other countries.

Rosalía Reyes is the General Coordinator of the Spanish-language book fair “FILNYC”, founded by the CUNY Mexican Studies Institute in 2019. She also is a doctoral student in the Latin American, Iberian, and Latino Cultures program at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. She is the host and producer of the literary TV program "Nueva York Entre Letras," which features interviews with Latin American writers. She is a journalist. She also has taught at Lehman College and City College of New York of CUNY. She is the co-author of a chapter in the second edition of the book "Latinos in New York: Communities in Transition," from Notre Dame University Press (2017).

Vilma Álvarez-Steenwerth is happy to be a World Languages librarian at the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Library. She is in charge of the Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese, and German collections. She successfully designs and implements programs for the non-English speaking community in New York.  Noted programs are Tinta, Papel, y...Café,  a writing workshop with a 7-year run; Echos Français: learning French through theater; the European Book Talk, a book discussion of modern European writers in translation, the Opera Book Club, the Festival de la palabra (Festival of the Written Word), and many more. She is a three-time recipient of the Mabel Award for Best Services to Young Adults from the New York Public Library and was a High School teacher in Brooklyn, NY.