New KTCO: Lilliam Rivera
This week on Keep the Channel Open, I'm talking with YA author Lilliam Rivera. In her young adult novels The Education of Margot Sanchez and Dealing In Dreams, Lilliam tells familiar stories in new ways—instead of a typical teen drama or dystopian science fiction, she centers Latina characters in stories that take on topics like colorism and gentrification. In our conversation, we talked about why she’s drawn to write stories about young people, what it means to buy into the American Dream, and whether violence is actually empowering. Then for the second segment, we discussed Jeanine Cummins’ recent novel American Dirt and the controversy around it.
Here are some links to where you can listen to the episode:
You can also listen to the full episode and find show notes and a transcript on the episode page at the KTCO website.