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| photo: Lilith Ferreira | |
Lilliam Rivera is an award-winning writer and author of the young adult novels Dealing in Dreams and The Education of Margot Sanchez. Her work has appeared the Washington Post, the New York Times and Elle. Rivera grew up in the Bronx, N.Y., and lives in Los Angeles; visit her online on Twitter and Instagram. Her recent novel is Never Look Back (Bloomsbury, $18.99), a modern retelling of the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, set in the Bronx.
On your nightstand now:
On my nightstand now is God-Level Knowledge Darts: Life Lessons from the Bronx by Desus & Mero. I need something funny to read before going to sleep, and the Bodega Boys are hilarious. I'm also reading the expansive The Breakbeat Poets Vol. 4: LatiNext, an anthology of poetry edited by Felicia Rose Chavez, José Oliveraz and Willie Perdomo.
Favorite book when you were a child:
I loved the picture book Babar Visits Another Planet by Laurent de Brunhoff. We had a very worn copy when I was a kid and I think that was my first science fiction book.
Your top five authors:
Jesmyn Ward is, in my opinion, America's voice. No one comes close to her prose. Yuri Herrera explores crossings and Mexico's history in such a unique view. In children's books, you must read Meg Medina, Elana K. Arnold and Renée Watson to see how it's done.
Book you've faked reading:
Moby-Dick by Herman Melville. Did anyone ever read the whole book or just the Cliffs Notes, like me?
Book you're an evangelist for:
I am forever talking about Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. I feel the monster is the world's first teenager desperately craving attention from his father.
Book you've bought for the cover:
Back in the day I was a fashion editor and I was/am obsessed with the designer Alexander McQueen. Savage Beauty is a 2011 exhibition catalogue that I purchased that has a holographic image of the designer morphing into a skull, and I love it so.
Book you hid from your parents:
My parents aren't fluent in English so I didn't have to hide any books from them but if I did have to, it would probably have been V.C. Andrews's Flowers in the Attic.
Book that changed your life:
When I read Esmeralda Santiago's memoir When I Was Puerto Rican, I was able to gain insight into the life my parents may have left behind.
Favorite line from a book:
"So foul and fair a day I have not seen." --Macbeth, Shakespeare
Five books you'll never part with:
Julia de Burgos's Song of the Simple Truth, Angie Cruz's Dominicana, Junot Díaz's Drown, Los Bros. Hernandez's comic book Music for Mechanics and S.E. Hinton's The Outsiders.
Book you most want to read again for the first time:
I read A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess when I was in high school and I thought it was such a disturbing, wild novel. I loved the slang he made up and the violent dystopian setting.