The Force is Strong with Jessica Parra
Explicit content warning
05/29/24 • 44 min
In this episode, AGG and Sergio gab with the fabulous Jessica Parra about our shared love for JLo, dropping a sizzling hot take (Wedding Planner v. Selena), navigating life as a Disney adult, unraveling the secrets of Tarot cards, and the delightful usage of nicknames. We dive into how she deals with grief, her choice to embrace the term “Latine,” in her writing, her creative spin on quinceañeras. Plus, we gush over her love for the TV show “Vida,” and her deep-seated passion for all things Star Wars.
About the Author: @JessicaTParra
As a lawyer and daughter of Guatemalan and Cuban bakers, Jessica Parra never objects to an extra slice of cake. She’s a Los Angeles native who loves to write about Latinas with big hair (and even bigger dreams), complicated families, and the healing magic of acceptance. She’s the author of Rubi Ramos’s Recipe for Success, the forthcoming The Quince Project (both published with Wednesday Books), as well as many unfinished first drafts about cats living their best lives—all nine of them. When she isn’t drafting books you can find her sipping kombucha, cuddling with her kitties, or co-piloting the Millennium Falcon at Disneyland’s Galaxy’s Edge.
About the Book: The Quince Project
The Wedding Planner gets a YA makeover in this delightful and heartfelt novel from the author of Rubi Ramos’s Recipe for Success.
Castillo Torres, Student Body Association event chair and serial planner, could use a fairy godmother. After a disastrous mishap at her sister's quinceañera and her mother's unexpected passing, all of Cas's plans are crumbling. So when a local lifestyle-guru-slash-party-planner opens up applications for the internship of her dreams, Cas sees it as the perfect opportunity to learn every trick in the book so that things never go wrong again.
The only catch is that she needs more party planning experience before she can apply. When she books a quinceañera for a teen Disneyland vlogger, Cas thinks her plan is taking off...until she discovers that the party is just a publicity stunt and she catches feelings for the chambelán. It's clear that her agenda is about to go way off-script, and that real life is a bit more complicated than a fairy tale.
But maybe Happily Ever Afters aren't just for the movies and a little spontaneity is just what she needs. Can Cas go from planner to participant in her own life? Or will this would-be princess turn into a pumpkin at the end of the ball?
Author Recommended Playlist:
Waiting for Tonight - Jennifer Lopez
The Imperial March (Darth Vader’s Theme) - John Williams
Tiempo de Vals - Chayanne
Connect with Los Bookis!
@Los.Bookis.Podcast
@adriangaston.garcia
@que_viva_sergio_lopez
In this episode, AGG and Sergio gab with the fabulous Jessica Parra about our shared love for JLo, dropping a sizzling hot take (Wedding Planner v. Selena), navigating life as a Disney adult, unraveling the secrets of Tarot cards, and the delightful usage of nicknames. We dive into how she deals with grief, her choice to embrace the term “Latine,” in her writing, her creative spin on quinceañeras. Plus, we gush over her love for the TV show “Vida,” and her deep-seated passion for all things Star Wars.
About the Author: @JessicaTParra
As a lawyer and daughter of Guatemalan and Cuban bakers, Jessica Parra never objects to an extra slice of cake. She’s a Los Angeles native who loves to write about Latinas with big hair (and even bigger dreams), complicated families, and the healing magic of acceptance. She’s the author of Rubi Ramos’s Recipe for Success, the forthcoming The Quince Project (both published with Wednesday Books), as well as many unfinished first drafts about cats living their best lives—all nine of them. When she isn’t drafting books you can find her sipping kombucha, cuddling with her kitties, or co-piloting the Millennium Falcon at Disneyland’s Galaxy’s Edge.
About the Book: The Quince Project
The Wedding Planner gets a YA makeover in this delightful and heartfelt novel from the author of Rubi Ramos’s Recipe for Success.
Castillo Torres, Student Body Association event chair and serial planner, could use a fairy godmother. After a disastrous mishap at her sister's quinceañera and her mother's unexpected passing, all of Cas's plans are crumbling. So when a local lifestyle-guru-slash-party-planner opens up applications for the internship of her dreams, Cas sees it as the perfect opportunity to learn every trick in the book so that things never go wrong again.
The only catch is that she needs more party planning experience before she can apply. When she books a quinceañera for a teen Disneyland vlogger, Cas thinks her plan is taking off...until she discovers that the party is just a publicity stunt and she catches feelings for the chambelán. It's clear that her agenda is about to go way off-script, and that real life is a bit more complicated than a fairy tale.
But maybe Happily Ever Afters aren't just for the movies and a little spontaneity is just what she needs. Can Cas go from planner to participant in her own life? Or will this would-be princess turn into a pumpkin at the end of the ball?
Author Recommended Playlist:
Waiting for Tonight - Jennifer Lopez
The Imperial March (Darth Vader’s Theme) - John Williams
Tiempo de Vals - Chayanne
Connect with Los Bookis!
@Los.Bookis.Podcast
@adriangaston.garcia
@que_viva_sergio_lopez
Previous Episode
From Military Brat to Edinburgh | Andrés N. Ordorica, How We Named the Stars
In this episode, Sergio and AGG meet with Andrés to discuss how nature plays a central theme in his book, our mutual frustration with the protagonist, reflect on the special bond he shared with his abuelo, the challenges of being queer, the need to leave one’s hometown, shares a valuable college tip and divulges his greatest fear on what he thinks may get him “canceled.”
About the Author: @andres_ordorica
Andrés N. Ordorica (He/him) is a queer Latinx writer based in Edinburgh. Drawing on his family’s immigrant history and third culture upbringing, his writing maps the journey of diaspora and unpacks what it means to be from ni de aquí, ni de allá (neither here, nor there). He is the author of the poetry collection At Least This I Know and novel How We Named the Stars. He has been shortlisted for the Morley Lit Prize, the Mo Siewcharran Prize and the Saltire Society’s Poetry Book of The Year. In 2024, he was selected as one of The Observer’s 10 Best Debut Novelists in the UK.
About the Book: How We Named the Stars
Set between the United States and México, Andrés N. Ordorica’s debut novel is a tender and lyrical exploration of belonging, grief, and first love―a love story for those so often written off the page. When Daniel de La Luna arrives as a scholarship student at an elite East Coast university, he bears the weight of his family’s hopes and dreams, and the burden of sharing his late uncle’s name. Daniel flounders at first―but then Sam, his roommate, changes everything. As their relationship evolves from brotherly banter to something more intimate, Daniel soon finds himself in love with a man who helps him see himself in a new light. But just as their relationship takes flight, Daniel is pulled away, first by Sam’s hesitation and then by a brutal turn of events that changes Daniel’s life forever.
As he grapples with profound loss, Daniel finds himself in his family’s ancestral homeland in México for the summer, finding joy in this setting even as he struggles to come to terms with what’s happened and faces a host of new questions: How does the person he is connect with this place his family comes from? How is his own story connected to his late uncle’s? And how might he reconcile the many parts of himself as he learns to move forward?
Equal parts tender and triumphant, Andrés N. Ordorica’s How We Named the Stars is a debut novel of love, heartache, redemption, and learning to honor the dead; a story of finding the strength to figure out who you are—and who you could be—if only the world would let you.
Author Recommended Playlist:
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Hysteric
Omar Apollo - En El Olvido
Vicente Fernandez - Volver, Volver
Connect with Los Bookis!
@Los.Bookis.Podcast
@adriangaston.garcia
@que_viva_sergio_lopez
Next Episode
Poet of the People
In this episode, AGG and Sergio sit down with Richard Blanco to discuss a range of topics including his decision to finally dedicate a book to his husband, his identity as a sensory poet, and his ongoing quest to find home. They also delve into his complex relationship with his abuela, including her attempts to bribe him into marrying a woman, and the intricate family dynamics with gender and gender roles. Richard shares his journey of being open and vulnerable, letting go of past burdens, his linguistic power over his parents, having the best queer experience as a youth in Miami, his visits to Cuba, and his strong dislike of toes.
About the Author: @poetrichardblanco
Richard Blanco’s work has been praised by Ada Limón, Patricia Smith, Eileen Myles, and Elizabeth Alexander, among many others; his poems have appeared in the New Yorker, The Atlantic, Poetry, and dozens of other publications. He is the recent recipient of the National Humanities Medal and was selected by Barack Obama as the fifth presidential inaugural poet in US history.
About the Book: Homeland of My Body
In this collection of over one hundred poems, Richard Blanco has carefully culled work from his previous book to represent the evolution of a writer grappling with his identity, working to find and define “home,” and bookended them with new poems that address those issues from a fresh, more mature perspective, allowing him to approach surrendering the pain and urgency of his past explorations. Pausing at this pivotal moment in mid-career, Blanco reexamines his lifelong quest to find his proverbial home and all that it encompasses: love, family, identity, and, ultimately, art itself. In the closing section of the volume, he has come to understand and internalize the idea that “home” is not one place, not one thing, and lives both inside him and inside his art.
Author Recommended Playlist:
James Taylor - Carolina In My Mind
Jackson Brown - The Pretender
Dua Lipa - Cold Heart
Connect with Los Bookis!
@Los.Bookis.Podcast
@adriangaston.garcia
@que_viva_sergio_lopez
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