Books & Books and Miami Book Fair presents…

AN EVENING WITH JENNIFER MARITZA MCCAULEY

in conversation with

Anjanette Delgado

discussing

When Trying to Return Home: Stories

(Counterpoint, $27.00)

Tuesday, February 7th, 7 PM | LIVE & IN-PERSON at Books & Books, Coral Gables

Signing to follow the conversation 

RSVP HERE FOR FREE

Join us in-person at Books & Books as writer and poet, Jennifer Maritza McCauley, discusses WHEN TRYING TO RETURN HOME. An evocative meditation on belonging, the meaning of home, and how we secure freedom on our own terms. Anjanette Delgado will be in conversation.

This event is FREE and open to the public and books will be available for purchase the night of the event so make sure to stay after the talk for a book signing! Please RSVP only if you intend to join us.

About the Book:

FOR READERS OF: The Secret Lives of Church Ladies by Deesha Philyaw, Of Women and Salt by Gabriela Garcia, Infinite Country by Patricia Engel, Fiebre Tropical by Juli Lopera

A dazzling debut collection spanning a century of Black American and Afro-Latino life in Puerto Rico, Pittsburgh, Louisiana, Miami, and beyond—and an evocative meditation on belonging, the meaning of home, and how we secure freedom on our own terms

Profoundly moving and powerful, the stories in When Trying to Return Home dig deeply into the question of belonging. A young woman is torn between overwhelming love for her mother and the need to break free from her damaging influence during a desperate and disastrous attempt to rescue her brother from foster care. A man, his wife, and his mistress each confront the borders separating love and hate, obligation and longing, on the eve of a flight to San Juan. A college student grapples with the space between chivalry and machismo in a tense encounter involving a nun. And in 1930s Louisiana, a woman attempting to find a place to call her own chances upon an old friend at a bar and must reckon with her troubled past.

Forming a web of desires and consequences that span generations, McCauley’s Black American and Afro–Puerto Rican characters remind us that these voices have always been here, occupying the very center of American life—even if we haven’t always been willing to listen.

PRAISE:

★ The Week, A Most Anticipated Book of 2023

★”One of the Best New Books to Read in 2023.” —Today

★”McCauley’s outstanding collection of stories will beguile and intrigue you . . . Equally tender and sharp, gentle and defiant, delicate and resilient.” —Karla Strand, Ms.

★”Admiringly gutsy and tender, with flashes of poetry . . . What can’t McCauley do? A writer to watch.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

BUY THE BOOK HERE

About the Author:

Jennifer Maritza McCauley is a writer, poet, and university professor. She has been awarded fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, Kimbilio, CantoMundo and the Sundress Academy for the Arts. She holds an MFA from Florida International University and a PhD in creative writing and literature from the University of Missouri. The author of the cross-genre collection SCAR ON/SCAR OFF (Stalking Horse Press) and the short story collection When Trying to Return Home (Counterpoint Press), she is an assistant professor of literature and creative writing at the University of Houston-Clear Lake.

About the Moderator:

Anjanette Delgado, Puerto Rican writer and journalist, is the author of The Heartbreak Pill (Simon and Schuster, 2009), winner of the Latino International Book Award in 2009, and The Clarivoyant of Calle Ocho (Kensington Publishing & Penguin Random House , 2014). Her work has been published in numerous anthologies, as well as The Kenyon Review, Pleiades, Vogue, Hostos Review, The Hong Kong Review (of which she was editor), NPR, and The New York Times. She is an Emmy winner and was nominated for a Pushcart Award in 2020. She lives in Miami and teaches creative writing at Florida International University, where she received her master’s degree in the same subject.

Anja’s work has appeared in numerous anthologies, as well as in The Kenyon Review, Pleiades, Vogue, The New York Times (“Modern Love”), The Hong Kong Review, NPR, and HBO, among others. A Bread Loaf Conference alumni, she won an Emmy Award for feature writing in 1994, served as a judge for the Flannery O’Connor Short Fiction Award in 2015, and was a Peter Taylor Fellow in Fiction in 2016. Her short story “Lucky” was nominated for a 2020 Pushcart Prize, she holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Florida International University, and lives in Miami, Florida.