The twenty-first century began optimistically in Latin America. Left-leaning leaders armed with programs to reduce poverty and reclaim national wealth were seeing results—but as the aughts gave way to the teens, they began to fall like dominos. Where did the dreams of this "pink tide" go? Look no further than the original culprits of Latin American disenfranchisement: resource-rich land and unscrupulous extraction.Recounting the story commodity by commodity, Andy Robinson reveals w...

If there is an enemy in the War on Drugs, it is people of color. That is the lesson of forty years of cultural production in the United States. Popular culture, from Scarface and Miami Vice to Narcos and Better Call Saul, has continually positioned Latinos as an alien people who threaten the US body politic with drugs. Jason Ruiz explores the creation and endurance of this trope, its effects on Latin Americans and Latinx people, and its role in the cultu...

On July 3, 1972, twenty-four hippies from Clearwater, Florida, set up tents and settled in for the night at Briar Bottom, a public US Forest Service campground in western North Carolina. The impromptu campout was a pit stop for the group on their way to a Rolling Stones concert in Charlotte. Early that evening, they drank beer, smoked marijuana, and listened to rock music as they anticipated the good times that lay ahead. Near midnight, the county sheriff showed up with six deputies, alleg...

In The Messi Effect, Paul Tenorio, national soccer writer for The Athletic, draws on coveted insider access to bring listeners behind the ropes and into the inner sanctum and chronicle the last act of Lionel Messi.The Messi Effect takes you inside the locker room as Messi’s arrival turned a last-place team into a global phenomenon, and into the Major League Soccer boardroom as league owners debated how to leverage Messi’s arrival to shape...

In Sapogonia, award-winning author Ana Castillo confronts the complex issues of race and identity facing those of mixed heritage through the struggles of Máximo Madrigal, an expatriate of Sapogonia, the metaphorical homeleand of all mestizos. Subtly political, it demonstrates how warring blood within a single body resists any peaceful resolution.

HE'S GOING BACK TO THE PLACE HE NEVER PLANNED TO SEE AGAIN:HIS HOMETOWNChef and Restaurateur Jake Ruiz left Newport, Washington, and never looked back. After his parents had practically disowned him for being gay, the town was nothing but bad memories for Jake. But, years later, a family emergency brings him back to his hometown. Grappling with the death of his husband and suddenly finding himself a single father to his five-year-old, Jake ...

For twenty-four-year-old Oliver Popp, autism is just another fact of life. As long as Oliver sticks to a comfortable itinerary planned in advance, he gets by just fine as a staff writer for Offbeat Traveler magazine. But a curveball drops into Oliver's budding career when his first feature assignment takes him to Washington, DC, to chronicle the latest tourism trends.His freelance project photographer is Ricky Warner, a gregarious and impulsively adorable shot of adrenalin...

The fabulous Oregon coast is a scenic getaway to behold, but for a gay, autistic travel writer and amateur sleuth, there is no such thing as a vacation from murder… Though sparks flew between travel writer Oliver Popp and extroverted photographer Ricky Warner on their last assignment together, when they're teamed up again for a road trip, they agree to keep things low-key. But that's a little at odds with Oliver's new assignment: finding romance on the Oregon coast. The destination is a pi...

Foreword by Dave EggersSmart, whimsical, and often scathing, the fiction of Kurt Vonnegut influenced a generation of American writers—including Dave Eggers, author of this volume’s Foreword. In these previously unpublished gems, Vonnegut’s originality infuses a unique landscape of factories, trailers, and bars—and characters who pit their dreams and fears against a cruel and sometimes comically indifferent world.Here are stories of men and machines, art and artifice, and ho...

"This is the story of a successful young couple living in Austin, Texas, whose personal histories, national and ethnic identities, and aptitudes and ambitions have brought them to this booming city in this fast time, to the music and tech industries, and to one another. New and old successes and family ties and responsibilities put Rob and Maria to the test concerning what they want in life and in marriage and force them to reckon with the adults and spouses their happy modern lives have m...

Foreword INDIES Book of the Year FinalistInterest in and awareness of the demand for social justice as an outworking of the Christian faith is growing. But it is not new.For five hundred years, Latina/o culture and identity have been shaped by their challenges to the religious, socio-economic, and political status quo, whether in opposition to Spanish colonialism, Latin American dictatorships, US imperialism in Central America, the...

It's 2017 and the crisis of forced disappearances has reached a tipping point after forty-three docent students disappeared and are feared dead. Aureliano Más the Second is a fledgling writer at a lucrative fellowship in Mexico City chaired by his aunt, Rose. When Aureliano was very young, his mother left without reason or trace. Aureliano is attempting to write a novel that mirrors his mother's unexplained disappearance while shattering Magical Realism as a genre in the process. It doesn'...