I’m shouting it out for a new title that is the perfect read to kick of Latino/Latinx Heritage month! It’s gotten lots of great reviews and pre-publicity and will publish at the end of September.

In THE KING OF ALOE VERA, Rey has lived on the same block in San Francisco’s Mission District for decades, watching his city transform. Now he spends most of his time volunteering at the library and vigilantly sweeping his stoop, which allows him to keep a careful eye on the neighborhood. He is on the verge of giving up his home and moving to a retirement community, the plan he had made with his deceased wife 10 years ago, when he catches Q, a soon to be unhoused, queer twenty-year-old, littering cigarette butts on his steps. Their friendship begins taking us on a joyful and magical journey through senior dance classes, children’s read-aloud hours, illegal bike trips over the Bay Bridge and fair housing rallies.

Tomas Moniz is a Latinx writer living in East Oakland, CA. His debut novel, Big Familia, was a finalist for the 2020 PEN/Hemingway and the LAMBDA. His second novel, All Friends Are Necessary, won the 2024 California Golden Poppy Award. He’s the recipient of the prestigious SF Literary Arts Foundation’s 2016 Award, the 2020 Artist Affiliate for Headlands Center for Arts, and the 2023 Lucas Artists Residency Program Fellow. Among the residencies he’s attended the 2022 UCross Residency, the 2020 Caldera Residency, the 2018 SPACE on Ryder Farm and others. He teaches at Berkeley City College, the Antioch MFA program and USF. 

If you know me, you know I grew up in Napa and still have many friends as well as dear family in the area:

NAPA/BAY AREA FRIENDS: Mr. Moniz will be on a panel of speakers at the NAPA BOOKMINE on Thursday, October 8!