Anna Meriano, middle grade author

Photo credit: Rita Meriano

Ever wondered what you should do if your professor thinks you should write literary fiction, but you know you’re going to write something else? Today’s guest, Anna Meriano, talks about how much she appreciated that prof and also why choosing to disregard his suggestion was the best decision she could have made. Also, we investigate the weird and fascinating triple Venn diagram of the arts, people who speaks Spanish, and firefighters in Houston.

Follow Anna on twitter @annamisboring and check out her website here.

Plus, don’t forget to grab yourself copies of Anna’s beautiful books, A Dash of Trouble and A Sprinkle of Spirits from the Love Sugar Magic series.*

Suggested Reads and Honorable Mentions

Matilda by Roald Dahl

“Hot Dog, Katsa!” by Kristin Cashore on The Horn Book Inc.

Rebecca Roanhorse (Trail of Lightning and others)

Anne McCaffrey (Dragonsong, Dragonflight, and others)

N.K. Jemisin (The Fifth Season, The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, and others)

The Last 8 by Laura Pohl

Club de Cuervos television show, available on Netflix

Kim’s Convenience television show from CBC, available on Netflix and Amazon Prime

miss translated poetry series by Elisa Chavez

The First Rule of Punk by Celia C. Pérez (+ Anna’s essay on it called “Coco, the First Rule of Punk, and Every Mexican (American) Story Out There” on Nerdy Book Club)

The Inquisitor’s Tale: Or, the Three Magical Children and their Holy Dog by Adam Gidwitz

Hurricane Child by Kheryn Callender

Cilla Lee-Jenkins: Future Author Extraordinaire by Susan Tan

The School Story by Andrew Clements

And be sure to take a peek at CAKE Literary, founded and run by Sona Charaipotra and Dhonielle J. Clayton, and their books including Tiny Pretty Things, The Belles, The Gauntlet by Karuna Riazi, and others

Bonus for our Houston listeners: Stop by El Bolillo or 85C Bakery Cafe for all of your pastry needs!

We Also Discussed

This article from KPRC/iHeart Radio, “Houston Hires Poet After Laying Off Firefighters” by Ken Webster

The Superman horror movie, Brightburn (if you’re feeling really brave, here’s the trailer, but you can’t say we didn’t warn you that it’s scary and violent)

Justin Cronin’s novels, including The Passage (he currently teaches a class on Narratives in Longer Fiction at Rice)

The awesomeness of Coert Voorhees and Ian Schimmel, a lecturer in Creative Writing at Rice

*A special thanks to Anna’s friends for pulling her away from a cheese plate at a party. It is because of you that the beautiful Love Sugar Magic books exist.