So happy that my story, “The Land of Long Days,” is in Ploughshares! Lilian is fourteen and confined in a juvenile immigrant shelter. When she’s asked why she immigrated alone, she tells her story—there is an evil witch called The Cuca; her father, a pink dolphin god named Boto; a friend turned foe with backwards feet named Caipora. Is Lilian’s escape from a mythical land real, or imagined? What does the trauma of losing a homeland do to the truth of who we are? Using Brazilian myth and modern day truths of life in a juvenile immigrant shelter, I try to tell the story of one girl’s journey. Thank you @psharesjournal for letting me share this story. Digital and print copies available at link in bio 💜💜💜 https://www.pshares.org/issues/fall-2022?utm_source=IGShopping&utm_medium=Social
"High Rise" // a new short story
I have a new short story in Guernica !
Girls of the Immortal Garden // a new story
I’ve got new short story! It will be published on October 1st in Zoetrope: All-Story’s Fall edition. “Girls of the Immortal Garden,” is my first published story in five years, and one I managed to write during this pandemic, which makes it doubly special to me. On October 1st, I’ll be in conversation with Zoetrope’s editor, Micheal Ray, and my two author-compatriots in the Fall Issue. The event is over Zoom, and free if you register here through the esteemed City Lights Books. If you want to read the story, you can buy the issue here, starting on October 1st.
The In-Betweens, an Essay and Op-Ed
Last year I visited immigration court a few times to understand how children are forced to brave it alone. Here is an essay about those kids, and that experience. A short version can be found here, and the full version here.
“The courtrooms were labeled with numbered plaques, like exam rooms in a medical office. Inside, however, was the traditional setup that I’d only ever seen on television — rows of wooden benches for spectators, a waist-high railing separating the gallery from the two lawyers’ desks and the judge’s elevated bench, all in dark wood. Flanking the judge were two more women: on the right, a young clerk; on the left, a woman wearing reading glasses who was the Spanish interpreter.
The judge’s voice was soothing, like a late-night radio DJ’s. She turned her attention to the child in the respondent’s seat — an 11-year-old girl. I’ll call her Elena. Elena smiled shyly at us, then at the judge. She crossed her arms over her stomach. On one wrist was a rainbow of plastic bracelets.”
NEA Fellowship in Literature!
Today, the National Endowment for the Arts announced that Chicago-based writer Frances de Pontes Peebles is one of 36 writers who will receive an FY 2020 Creative Writing Fellowship of $25,000. These fellowships enable the recipients to set aside time for writing, research, travel, and general career advancement. Fellows are selected through a highly-competitive, anonymous process and are judged on the artistic excellence of the work sample provided.
“The National Endowment for the Arts is proud to support our nation’s writers, including Frances de Pontes Peebles, and the artistry, creativity, and dedication that go into their work,” said Mary Anne Carter, chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts.
Frances was selected from nearly 1,700 eligible applicants. Fellowships alternate between poetry and prose each year and this year’s fellowships are to support prose writers. The full list of FY 2020 Creative Writing Fellows is available here.
Frances de Pontes Peebles is the author of the novels The Air You Breathe and The Seamstress. Her work has been translated into ten languages and won the Elle Grand Prix for fiction, the Friends of American Writers Award, and O. Henry Prize Stories. She has received fellowships from Fulbright, the James Michener-Copernicus Society of America, the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, and Brazil’s Sacatar Foundation. Born in Brazil and raised in Miami, she is a graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop, where she also served as Visiting Professor of Fiction. She currently serves on the Board of the Young Center for Immigrant Children’s Rights.
Since 1967, the Arts Endowment has awarded more than 3,500 Creative Writing Fellowships totaling over $55 million. Many American recipients of the National Book Award, National Book Critics Circle Award, and Pulitzer Prize in Poetry and Fiction were recipients of National Endowment for the Arts fellowships early in their careers.
Visit the agency’s Literature Fellowships webpage to read excerpts by and features on past Creative Writing Fellows and recipients of Literature Fellowships for translation projects. For more information on literature at the National Endowment for the Arts, go to arts.gov.
Language, Power, Identity & Relationships at the SAMLA Conference
Starting on 11/16 I'll participate in the first Mulherio das Letras - Estados Unidos at SAMLA (South Atlantic Modern Language Conference) in Atlanta. There will be a huge selection of Lusophone Women's writing panels and events. Mulherio das Letras is a Brazilian collective of women in the literary arts. If you are in Atlanta and love literature, this conference is a really amazing study of language, power, identity and relationships.
Book Page gives "The Air You Breathe" a *starred* review for Book Clubs!
Need a July read for a Book Club? BookPage featured "The Air You Breathe" (now in paperback!) as a starred book club pick. Message me and I'll try to Skype/Facetime with your book club. It's fun and I love talking to readers. With this book in particular, people have VERY strong feelings about the characters, which makes for a great book club discussion about female characters and our expectations of them.
Looking for a Summer Read?
Thanks to Washington Post & author Taylor Jenkins Reid, ("The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo" and "Daisy Jones & The Six"): "This summer...I’m also looking forward to “The Air You Breathe,” by Frances de Pontes Peebles, which came out last year. I’ve heard it compared to Elena Ferrante..."
Get the paperback!
https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780735211001…
For Italian Readers: Come l’aria che respiri
Dai quartieri più difficili di Rio a Hollywood, vite legate indissolubilmente nel nome della musica. Le racconta la brasiliana Frances De Pontes Peebles in “Come l’aria che respiri”, immergendo il lettore in atmosfere affascinanti
«Se la mia vita si potesse ascoltare, se potessi suonarla su un giradischi come un LP consumato, sarebbe una samba. Non il samba chiassoso che si suona a carnevale. Non una di quelle stupide marchinhas, insipide ed effimere come bolle di sapone. E neanche la variante romantica e sommessa. No, il mio sarebbe un samba de roda, quello che suonavamo in cerchio dopo il lavoro e un paio di drink belli forti». A parlare è l’anziana Dor, la voce narrante del nuovo romanzo di Frances De Pontes Peebles, Come l’aria che respiri (519 pagine, 17 euro), pubblicato dalla casa editrice Dea Planeta e tradotto da Francesca Mastruzzo.
Libraries are the best.
What BEAUTIFUL displays from The University Library at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign featuring their many resources related to the history covered in my novels. I'll be giving a presentation at the library tomorrow 4/13/19 at 2:30 p.m. at the International and Area Studies Library at Illinois! Come join me!
