My evening at the Latino Literacy
Now’s International Latino Book Awards

June 5, 2012 at the Instituto Cervantes in New York City I had the honor of being part of the largest and most important Latino book awards in the United States.

The 14th Annual International Latino Book Awards!

My first book, Conversations With My Skin, was awarded second place in the category Best Poetry in English!

148 authors and publishers were honored
and the awards were presented by the following:

• Latino Literacy Now – an organization founded to promote literacy in the Latino community in all forms: educational, financial, reading, and community awareness.

• Las Comadres Para Las Americas, founded by Nora de Hoyos Comstock PhD. – With informal groups established around the country for over 25 years, Nora Comstock’s desire is to build community and share resources. Using her technological background she wants to take the Comadres groups to a new level using the internet as a resources for empowerment.

• The Instituto Cervantes – A not-for-profit organization created by the Spanish government in 1991 with the goal of promoting the teaching of Spanish and to contribute to the advancement of the culture of the Spanish speaking countries.

Photographed here with fellow authors and first place winners. Gloria Rodriguez, founder and director of www.DeAlmas.org
and
Graciela Tiscareño-Sato Social Entrepreneur and Chief Creative Officer of Gracefully Global Group, LLC. www.latinovating.com.

Photographed here with Nora De Hoyos Comstock founder of Las Comadres Para Las Americas.

It was an evening filled with authors of various genres. Voices from Spain, Colombia, Ecuador, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, Mexico, Cuba, Argentina, Guatemala, and from various parts of the United States all came together to celebrate one another.

It was a wonderful evening!

Friday the 13th…A day of many blessings!

When you are raised with a strong spiritual foundation (not to be confused for superstition) Friday the 13th is a day of cleansing of any stagnant energy, both physical and emotional. Floors are swept, candles lit, and sweet sage is burned to calm the home and ensure blessings are received. These things were a typical aspect of my childhood. On Friday April 13th 2012 after a quiet morning of café con leche, deep breathing, and heartfelt prayers whispered into clear water to thank my ancestors, I became a recipient of the 2012 “Mujeres Destacadas Award” a recognition given annually by El Diario La Prensa to the most outstanding women in our community.

As an honoree, I was in the company of some of the Tri-state area’s most successful and influential Latinas in the corporate, business, entertainment, sports and community arenas. The celebration was held at the posh Mandarin Oriental Hotel where I had the pleasure of chatting with Amando Serrana, a female boxer, Marcela Bravo, a probation officer officer, Soledad Hiciano, executive director of the Community Association of Progressive Dominicans, Wilda Diaz, the mayor of Perth Amboy, Diana Castro, account manager for HBO, and Luisa Escalera, designer and special education teacher among many other successful women.

Honorees, both past and present, mingled, networked and enjoyed the inspiring words of Rossana Rosado, publisher and CEO of El Diario La Prensa.

El Diario also honored several young ladies with scholarship awards and the title of Señoritas De Nuestro Futuro.

This award means a great deal to me because as a child my parents would read El Diario aloud to me to encourage retention of my first language as I became fluent in English. El Diario was a family staple that kept my parents connected to current events in a homeland where they were first generation immigrants.

Not bad for this former teen mom!

“Rebirth of a Queen” awards ceremony and celebration!

I will be performing at this year’s”Rebirth of a Queen” awards ceremony and celebration!

The Woman Of Ase Ire!

In December, I was interviewed and featured in the Spotlight section of the website Ase Ire. Ase Ire is the creation of Iyalorisa Efúnfúnláyò Ifákemi Easter Wood, an Orisa priestess and doctoral student in African and African American Studies at Harvard University. In the spirit of reciprocity and to share this beautiful woman’s goal to promote the power of positivity, I decided to interview her and share her purpose and vision for Ase Ire with all of you. Enjoy!

1- What is Ase Ire?
Ase Ire is a labor of love. It is a place where I can share all of the excitement and positive energy that I have been blessed to receive with my community using universal principles as conveyed through the Orisa. I pray it is a place where people can come to learn, to reflect and to share.

2- What prompted you to create Ase Ire?
As a practitioner of the Yoruba Ifa-Orisa tradition, I noticed that a lot of the websites and information out there was about ritual, practice and other very specific aspects of the tradition but didn’t address the “human factor.” How do I apply this knowledge to my everyday life? Where are the Orisa-centric principles in everything that we do? I wanted to create a space to answer some of those questions and also to engage those who may not be practitioners, but who could relate to the principles. As well, I am engaged in scholarship on the tradition and I use Ase Ire as a place from which to share some of that information with the community.

3- What is your long term goal for Ase Ire?
Long term, the sky is the limit! I’m allowing it to naturally live and evolve. I am organizing the first of what I pray will be many collaborative events with Ase Ire in April called “Sacred Healing & Wholeness in Africa & the Americas.” This is a day-long symposium that will take place at Harvard University and allow those who study and practice African, African Diasporic and American Indigenous religions the space to discuss the many meanings of health, healing and being whole. The concepts within these traditions are often very different than that expressed by Western medicine and, as I feel the world is in dire need of healing, I thought this would be a great point of focus. I’m also hosting a workshop with Luisah Teish called “The Mirror in the Water: Autobiography as a Spiritual Practice.” She is a dynamic woman and priestess and I’m proud to be working with her. These types of events and many more are what I see as Ase Ire’s present and future.

4- What is your personal mantra / life affirmation and how does it guide your life’s purpose?
My personal mantra, which I first heard from my Master Teacher Awo Oluwole Ifakunle Adetutu is that “Ifa says we should be thankful, I say we should be thankful!” which comes from the odu Ifa ose ogunda. I approach each and every moment of my life from a position of gratitude and seek always to give back to the world at least a small portion of that which I have been given.

5- Words of wisdom
Love hard, laugh harder and allow the tears to flow when they will. All are sacred. Know that nothing worth having will come without sacrifice and that the missteps are a part of the journey.

Please visit aseire.com and watch Funlayo YouTube Video.

Support, Prayers, and Soft Leather

I am always humbled by people who genuinely support my writing and encourage me to continue tapping this keyboard and putting pen to paper. What many don’t know is that the writing process for me is similar to prayer. I use words in time of pain, triumph, surrender, and unsurpassed joy. Words have energy, purpose, and intent in my life the way chanting does to my Buddhist friends, the way rosary beads did for my Abuela Ana Dolores, and how meditation does for my mother. Whenever I recall a significant moment in my life, I can also recall the words spoken or written at that time. During academic achievements, death or birth I have always relied on words. I have written letters to all my children before they were born, to my husband the day we met, and to my ancestors regularly asking for guidance.

What I write on is equally as important to me depending upon the task. I have written on corn and tobacco leaves, napkins, printer paper, lined and unlined notebooks, paper bags, and even on tissue paper following some deep realization after a very ugly snot filled yet, extremely necessary cry when I was sure no one was looking.

So when Harry and Yvette Santiago gifted me with a beautiful soft nubuck leather journal I was surprised and extremely grateful. Harry is a project manager at Image Marketing Inc.com and Yvette is a pedagogue in preschool. Harry and I both share the strange quirk that if a journal doesn’t “feel right” then it doesn’t encourage the writer to fill it. Strange? Well, maybe, coming from the woman who has written love poems on white flower petals! Nevertheless, a journal and a writer develop a bond, a connection to pages and if it doesn’t feel right from the first touch then why bother?

This journal is absolutely beautiful in look and feel. They wrote words of encouragement on the first page and their energy, purpose and intent clearly surrounds its soft leather and buttery interior sheets. I look forward to praying within its pages.

Thank you, Harry and Yvette, for this symbol of support, love and encouragement.

For those who have asked, here are some performance dates

Babble in The Bronx!

I’ll be featuring with Rock Wilk
When: Friday, February 17, 2012
Time: 8:00p.m. -11:30p.m.
Where: Mi Gente Cafe
1306 Unionport Road, Bronx, N.Y. 10462

I’ll be featuring in Fairfield University
With Flora Montes, John Chance Acevedo and Raul K Rios
When: February 27, 2012
Time: 7-9pm
Where: Fairfield University, Connecticut

Celebrate Women’s History Month with Gloria Rodriguez
author of
YOU ARE MORE THAN GOOD ENOUGH
A Book Reading/Signing & Reception

w/Poetry by Peggy Robles Alvarado

Stand in Your Beauty; Claim Your Magnificence;
Celebrate the Spirit of Women in Community!

Date: Tuesday, March 6, 2012
Time: 6-9pm (starting promptly)
Where: The Longwood Art Gallery@ Hostos Community College
450 Grand Concourse (@149th St) Bronx, New York 10451
2,4, 5IRT Trains to 149th Street
For more information please visit: gloriarodriguezauthor.com