Writer-Allies/AMPPI: Don Cellini

One of the great pleasures of being at the helm of Letras Latinas has been meeting like-minded folk. And among these are people who not only share a love of literature and the various activities surrounding its creation and dissemination, but writers who become what we in Latino letters often refer to as allies. In fact, Letras Latinas Blog intends to start a thread of interviews/profiles of some of these allies.

Slated to inaugurate this gesture is Don Cellini: Letras Latinas associate Lauro Vazquez will be conducting a substantive interview with this poet, translator and photographer. And so as an appetizer of sorts here's a peek at one of Don's new books, a dual-language gem: Candidate for sainthood and other sinners, alongside its Spanish translation (by Fer de la Cruz Herrera), Aprendices de santo y otros pecadors.  And here, as well, is a link to a place on the web where Don reads a few poems from a previous collection, Translate into English. Both of these titles are put out by a terrific small press that has been a friend to Latino letters, Judith Kerman's Mayapple Press, who has published titles by Lidia Torres, and Johanny Vazquez Paz, respectively.

And, not surprisingly, Don's condition as an ally of Latino letters, has taken concrete form as (you guessed it) a new owner of Malaquias Montoya's "Untitled" as part of the Andrés Montoya Poetry Prize Initiative: 

Don Cellini

And here is the updated AMPPI Photo Gallery,

which numbers over 25!