We chat with Sandra Proudman about Relit: 16 Latinx Remixes of Classic Stories, which is a new YA anthology featuring sixteen stories from award-winning and bestselling YA authors and they all center around a Latinx point of view by reimagining classics through fantasy, science fiction, and with a dash of magic.
Hi, Sandra! Can you tell our readers a bit about yourself?
Hi everyone! I am a Mexican American author, mom to an incredible toddler, huge advocate for more marginalized voices in publishing, and a literary agent at Gallt & Zacker Literary Agency. I was born in Mexico, but grew up in California, where I really have learned to love everything from camping and being outdoors to enjoying a great Sunday brunch or farmer’s market morning with my husband and kiddo. I am a fan of speculative fiction and at heart am a science fiction nerd, which is why I am so excited to debut in the traditional publishing world with a post-apocalyptic story in Relit: 16 Latinx Remixes of Classic Stories!
When did you first discover your love for writing and stories?
I’ve loved books all my life. Both of my parents were big readers and I grew up going to the library every single week and immersed in the world of books. So I owe my love of writing and stories to my family and libraries.
Quick lightning round! Tell us:
- The first book you ever remember reading: I truly have the worst memory and can’t name anything really, but I do remember I enjoyed Caroline B. Cooney books when I was younger.
- The one that made you want to become an author: There are way too many to name, the one that made me believe that I could become an author, though, as a Latina who understood the lack of Latinx representation in the industry, was Zoraida Córdova’s Brooklyn Bruja’s series. And now, I have the honor of having Zoraida as one of my contributors in Relit, which has been incredible.
- The one that you can’t stop thinking about: A recent one that I thought was absolutely brilliant is Amber McBride’s Gone Wolf.
Releasing on February 6th, Relit: 16 Latinx Remixes of Classic Stories is a new YA anthology, which is edited by you! If you could only describe it in five words, what would they be?
Magical. Diverse. Adventurous. Feels. Wondrous.
What can readers expect?
Readers can expect cinematic adventures from diverse Latinx perspectives. Lots of amazing queer voices, queer love, and queer crushes. Heartache that cuts you to the core, and healing moments that offer you hope for a better world. Readers can expect to be taken on a ride through the cosmos or under water or to places they’ve never ventured before. Most of all, readers can expect to see Latinx teens as the heroes of their own stories.
Where did the inspiration for Relit: 16 Latinx Remixes of Classic Stories come from?
I wanted to give a go at editing a Latinx anthology and, with a background in project management, I knew that I could do a good job. But, of course, I still needed to come up with the concept or hook. I ultimately decided that since I love speculative fiction, it made sense to make the anthology a little bit of everything within that realm. The idea of integrating that with classics retellings really came from wanting there to be a strong library and school presence for the book in order to give as many teens access to the anthology as possible. During the time I was coming up with this concept, there was also a huge debate regarding whether we needed to modernize classics for the teens of today. I figured I’d combine these two ideas into one truly special project that is Relit!
This is your first anthology! Can you tell us a bit about the process of how it came together?
It is! It’s been a really fun process, but not without its challenges. Once I knew what I wanted the theme of the anthology to be, I started to contact contributors and was able to put together a really incredible list of amazing authors. We sold the anthology to a perfect imprint, but soon after we lost our first editor when they moved soon after they acquired the anthology, which was heartbreaking since Stephanie Cohen is amazing. Our second editor for the anthology, Meghan Maria McCullough, who is equally amazing, we lost when Inkyard Press was shuttered, which again, was so heartbreaking. But we’ve been tremendously lucky to have landed with our third and final editor for the project, Carolina Ortiz. She’s been such a joy to work with and has taken this project and cared for it as much as I could have hoped. In terms of the stories coming together, everyone on the contributor list for Relit is a true professional, so the stories came easily, contributors brought their A+++ game, and now we get to celebrate its launch!
What’s next for you?
I have a YA horror short story in an anthology edited by a good friend of mine, Alex Brown, titled The House Where Death Lives, which is coming out on August 6, 2024 from Page Street Books. It’s Squid Game meets Escape Room, but also focuses on the teens that have to do impossible things for themselves and their families. I am also working on wrapping up revisions for my first full-length novel that will be released, a historical fantasy called Salvación, which is coming out from Wednesday Books in spring or summer of 2025. It’s a Zorro retelling with salt magic that imagines a world where magical healing salt has been discovered instead of gold during the pre-gold-rush era. As you can expect, it has a lot of action, a lot of adventure and romance, and underneath it all (in full Zorro fashion) it talks about colonialism and doesn’t shy away from having a strong take there.
Lastly, are there any 2024 book releases that you’re looking forward to?
Outside of ALL of the books being released from Relit contributors this year (including NoNieqa Ramos’s Best Believe, which also comes out February 6th), I’m really excited for Damara Allen’s The Skeleton Flute. Damara was a mentee of mine when Pitch Wars was still running, and I can’t wait for everyone to read her amazing MG horror. I’m also really excited for Jonny Garza Villa’s Canto Contigo and Aiden Thomas’s Celestial Monsters.
