The Abuela Stories Project - Paperback on Amazon.com

Grandmother, Abuela, Nana, Mamá- no matter what term of endearment we use to describe them, Abuelas play a pivotal role in our identity, our customs, and in our conditioning whether it be through reprimands, gentle hugs or vivid memories. “The Abuela Stories Project”, an anthology available online at amazon.com and createspace.com, highlights the essence of Abuelas, their guidance, distinctive personalities, and detriments through original works of poetry, prose and photography.

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Award winning poet Peggy Robles-Alvarado partnered with Bronx based visual artist and photographer Daisy Arroyo to capture Abuelas as artists, dancers, drummers and rebels redefining themselves. These images served as inspiration to a group of women writers who created passionate and sometimes painful original works that tell of Abuelas and the lives they have touched. “The Abuela Stories Project” is bringing distinct Abuelas out of the kitchen, from past memory into a present day spotlight, to take an intimate look at the lessons they offer new generations.

Following the sweeping success of her award winning poetic memoir “Conversations with My Skin” and a to-capacity book launch for her second poetry and prose collection “Homenaje a las guerreras/Homage to the Warrior Women,” Peggy Robles-Alvarado is thrilled to announce the completion of her most recent title “The Abuela Stories Project”. She devised this project after becoming an Abuela in her early thirties and as an act of creative rebellion against those who found little value in stories about these modern day matriarchs. Peggy depicts Abuelas whose roles and delineations continue to evolve within present day parameters.

The Abuela Stories Project is part of the Abuelas Exhibit at La Casita's Gallery

September 15, 2020 through the academic year end of March of 2021.

The Exhibit will include readings from the book, showing of the photographs by Daisy Arroyo, discussions about the project, informal conversations, and story sharing with programs attendees.

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Bringing Abuelas out of the kitchen
and into the spotlight!

Peggy Robles-Alvarado is Dominican and Puerto Rican Abuela born in Washington Heights who now lives in the Wakefield section of the Bronx and credits the borough for making her an artist. She is a Jerome Hill Foundation Fellow in Literature, a two-time Pushcart Prize nominee, and a 2020 Atticus Review Poetry Contest winner. She is also a BRIO award winner with fellowships from CantoMundo, Desert Nights Rising Stars, The Frost Place, Nalac Leadership Institute, Communitas America, and VONA. With advanced degrees in education and an MFA in Performance Studies this former teen mother, and initiated priestess in Lukumi and Palo celebrates womanhood and honors cultural rituals. She’s a three-time International Latino Book Award winner who authored Conversations With My Skin (2011), and Homage To The Warrior Women (2012).

Through Robleswrites Productions, she created Lalibreta.online (2021), The Abuela Stories Project (2016), and Mujeres, The Magic, The Movement, and The Muse (2017). Her work has been featured on HBO Habla Women, Lincoln Center, Smithsonian Institute- Museum of the American Indian, Pen America World Voices Festival, Pregones Theater, and her poetry appears online in Poets.org, Tribes.org, The Quarry at Split This Rock, The Common, 92Y.org, Centro Voices Letras Literary Journal, and NACLA.org. Peggy’s poetry has also been published in several anthologies including The Breakbeat Poets Vol. 4: LatiNext (2020), and What Saves Us: Poems of Empathy and Outrage in the Age of Trump (2019). For more please visit Robleswrites.com.

About Daisy Arroyo

Photographer

Daisy Arroyo is a Bronx artist that evokes visual pleasure and has always found inspiration from her urban roots. Her artistic journey started at an early age in the Sound View Section of the Bronx and has recently flourished in photography where she captures the essence of life and art in unexpected places, shadows, and reflections. Her work has been exhibited in at The Abrons Arts Center as part of the Perspectives from New York City Collection, at The Soho Digital Art Gallery as part of the Springing Through The Lens showcase both premiering spring of 2013.

Daisy has participated in on location photography shoots at the International Beauty Show at The Jacob Javits Center, at Brooklyn Fashion Weekend, Bronx Fashion Week and various events sponsored by New York Fashion Shows, a company that specializes in showcasing various designers such as Project Runway’s winner Irina Shabayeva, Celebrity Designer Michael Costello and Long Champ throughout the year. Most recently, Daisy’s keen eye and artistry behind the camera has led her to collaborate with artisans, spoken word artists, and writers from the tri-state area to document the power of words and memory. One of her photographs serves as cover art for The Bronx Memoir Project published by the Bronx Writers Center. To learn more about Daisy Arroyo and her work please contact her at dnova310@aol.com