Label Me Latina/o: Special Issue Summer 2021
Special Issue Editors:
Trevor Boffone, University of Houston
Cristina Herrera, California State University, Fresno
(artwork: The Nostalgic Wind of the Castaway (Same Sand, Different Island) by Marcos Martinez)
This special issue of Label Me Latina/o invites submissions that consider Latinx Young Adult Literature published in the twenty-first century. In recent years, the field of Latinx YA literature has exploded with new imprints specifically dedicated to the field, such as Piñata Books from Arte Público Press and mainstream publishers such as Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, as well as Lee and Low Books, that have consciously made efforts to publish Latinx texts. Despite the achievements of award-winning authors, such as Elizabeth Acevedo, Guadalupe García McCall, Meg Medina, Margarita Engle, Matt De La Peña, Benjamin Alire Sáenz, etc., scholarship on Latinx literature has overwhelmingly ignored texts written for younger audiences. Esteemed journals on the study of children’s literature have published few scholarly articles examining Latinx YA texts. As the Latinx population in the United States approaches becoming the majority by 2043, the need for scholarship centered on Latinx young adult writing has become more pressing. While recent edited volumes have offered much necessary critical intervention, such as Voices of Resistance: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Chican@ Children’s Literature; Nerds, Goths, Geeks, and Freaks: Outsiders in Chicanx and Latinx Young Adult Literature; and Latino/a Children’s and Young Adult Writers on the Art of Storytelling, scholarship still remains largely absent in mainstream children’s literary studies and Latinx studies journals.
In response to this, we invite critical and creative manuscripts as well as interviews with YA authors that engage with the following themes that may include, but are not limited to:
- Outsiders in YA texts
- Pedagogy/teaching YA writing in the “adult” college classroom
- Queerness and sexuality in YA writing
- Gender in YA writing
- Blackness and Indigeneity in YA literature
- Representations of reading/writing/science/math/art in children’s and YA writing
- Comparative analysis of multiple Latinx and YA texts
- Disability in YA writing
- Bullying and violence
- The Politics of YA Publishing
- Critical perspectives of authors, such as Elizabeth Acevedo, Lilliam Rivera, Pam Muñoz Ryan, Guadalupe García McCall, Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Meg Medina, Rigoberto Gonzalez, Juan Felipe Herrera, Margarita Engle, Matt De La Peña, Adam Silvera, and others
Scholarly submissions should be between 12-30 pages, double-spaced, 12 point font and should follow the MLA Style Manual. Please use End Notes rather than Footnotes and place page numbers in the upper right hand corner.
Original, unpublished submissions in Microsoft Word (PC compatible format) should be sent electronically to Visiting Editors Cristina Herrera at [email protected] and Trevor Boffone at [email protected]as well as to both the co-editors: Kathryn Quinn-Sánchez at [email protected] and Michele Shaul at [email protected] (please put the phrase “Label Me Latina/a submission Special Issue Summer 2021” in the subject line).
We do accept simultaneous submissions of creative works. Scholarly articles under consideration should not be submitted elsewhere.
Deadline for the Summer 2021 special issue: January 30, 2021.
Please include the following information in the body of the email:
Full name
Institutional Affiliation
Telephone number
Email address
Regular mail address
Title of the submission
A brief biography to be included with publication should your submission be selected.
Please make sure that the actual manuscript bears no reference to the author’s name or institution.
Label Me Latina/o is an academic journal and as such follows the parameters of definitions set by the academic community. In that community when we refer to Latina/o/x Literature, we are referring to writers of Latin American heritage that live and write in the United States. These can be first generation Latino or fifth but they live and work here in the U.S. Some of these writers write in Spanish, others write in Spanglish like the Nuyorican poets and many of them write in English with a little Spanish thrown in (or not). Scholarly essays should address the work of these writers. The authors of these scholarly essays may be of any ethnicity or nationality. Creative works should be authored by writers who self-define as Latina/o/x and live and write in the United States.
Label Me Latina/o is indexed by the MLA International Bibliography, is listed in the MLA Directory of Periodicals and is a member of Latinoamericana: Asociación de revistas académicas en Humanidades y Ciencias Sociales. Our articles are discoverable on EBSCOhost research databases. ISSN 2333-4584
