Thelma T Reyna

Susana Porras's journey over the Camino de Santiago with her seventy-three-year-old father was a life-changing journey filled with awe-inspiring scenery, spiritual awakening, and lots of cafe con leche. Come with them as they travel physically, spiritually, and historically along this five-hundred-mile Camino. Take in the scenery, learn about its thousand-year history of clerics and kings, and of course, don't forget to stop and savor the tortillas.

A ground-breaking anthology of 45 distinguished American contemporary poets and prose writers, written in real time in the first half of the historic, devastating coronavirus COVID-19 invasion of America in 2020. In heart-wrenching, wide-eyed observations, firsthand events, tragedies, and reflections, these top authors document for us the horrors, grief, and heroism of friends, family, neighbors as we watched the disease unfold. Here are moments of hope and togetherness as well, seeking respite and balms. This gathering of Poets Laureate, national award winners, poet leaders, essayists, academics, and short fiction writers is a collection to treasure and a touchstone for generations to come.

Two young Latino college students from backgrounds of poverty, with divergent life stories and roots, made vows to live life together--vows buffeted through five decades as their children were born and the couple's careers unfolded, vows tested as they evolved in their values and perspectives on matters miniscule and mighty. But the most vital of all held constant: their commitment to their family and one another. Thus is the foundation of Dearest Papa: A Memoir in Poems, by nationally-recognized author and former Poet Laureate Thelma T. Reyna. The sudden death in minor surgery of Reyna's husband, eight months after their golden wedding anniversary, stirred deep despair well-documented in this book, but also reinforced the author's regret that, in our hurried lives, we often take one another for granted, failing to soulfully, regularly profess to our loved ones how precious they are to us. In this memoir, Reyna pays tribute to her husband (affectionately called Papa by their family and friends): his suffering when his health declined in his last years of life, his unmitigated devotion to his family, and the endearing goodness and excellence that defined his life and career.

In this collection of poetry and fictional prose, national award-winning author Thelma T. Reyna explores President Trump's effects on the nation during his first pivotal year in office. Speaking in the voices of constituents on both sides of the political aisle, Reyna weaves factual news and other public reports with real and imagined characters to give a reality-based context to the emotions, opinions, fears, hopes, and dreams of Americans in the amazingly untraditional Trump presidency. "If poets are the prophets of our age, Thelma T. Reyna is not only a prophet but a first responder to the Trump era. Placing her poems like bandages over bleeding lies and broken promises, Reyna soothes the pain of a nation in crisis." --Cassie Premo Steele National Award-Winning Poet Author, Tongues in Trees: Poems 1993-2017 "Stunning, heartfelt and deeply honest. Reyna presents to us the forecast of an unfolding aftermath and beyond...in a powerful poetic voice." --Beverly M. Collins, Pushcart Prize Nominee, Poetry Author, Mud in Magic