Casa Luna Unshelved

What if you could hear color?

This week I sit down with Bay Area poet and educator Nisha Srinivasa, author of The Synesthete's Rainbow: Poetry in the Colors of Love.

We talk about what synesthesia actually feels like, why she built a poetry collection that reads like a story, and why narrating her own audiobook gave her back the voice she lost in those relationships. We also get into her hot take on how schools teach poetry, why rap is poetry, the teacher who saw something in her "sad girl poetry" at 11, and why poetry has always belonged to Brown, Black, and Indigenous cultures. As I put it on the mic: we don't just do it best, we did it first.

Plus: her year of reading only women authors of color, the publishing-marketing push, the poster her students made for her book launch, and a first look at her next collection: a book of letters to the grandmother she never got to know. 🌙

• The Synesthete's Rainbow: Poetry in the Colors of Love by Nisha Srinivasa. Get it at Casa Luna Books: https://casa-luna-books.myshopify.com/products/synesthetes-rainbow-poetry-in-the-colors-of-love
• Audiobook narrated by Nisha, on Libro.fm, Spotify, Chirp & Kobo
• Coming from Nisha: an untitled poetry collection of letters to her paternal grandmother (first look on this episode!)

Mentioned in this episode

• Wordslut by Amanda Montell
• Poetry Says It Better by Ellen Burstyn (audiobook, read by the author)
• Threads of Her Braid by Tanya Zuñiga: https://casa-luna-books.myshopify.com/products/threads-of-her-braid-tanya-zuniga
• Brotherless Night by V.V. Ganeshananthan (Nisha's current print read)
• Fruit Fly by Josh Silver (Nisha's current audiobook)
• Taipei Story by R.F. Kuang (Nisha's next read)
• The Spear Cuts Through Water by Simon Jimenez (my rec for Nisha)
• Poets & authors: Rupi Kaur, Warsan Shire, Nayyirah Waheed, Nikita Gill, Sandra Cisneros, Saumya Dave, Pablo Neruda, Frantz Fanon, James Baldwin

• Instagram & TikTok: @nishawritesstories (author page, behind-the-scenes)

• Substack: https://nishawritesstories.substack.com

• She Writes Press, Nisha's publisher, dedicated to publishing women: https://shewritespress.com

• Libro.fm, an audiobook platform that supports indie bookstores
• Can't find a book? Request it at your local indie bookstore. That's Nisha's favorite way to buy.

Shop Latine, BIPOC & indie authors at Casa Luna Books: https://casa-luna-books.myshopify.comThanks for hanging out under the moon with me. Stay curious, stay in the know, and keep the light on for the stories that need it most.

This week we’re stepping a little outside the bookshelf. This show has always been about more than books. It’s about who gets to take up space and build something loud and unapologetic on their own terms.

Melly sits down with Haley Escamilla, founder of Two and a Half Street, a Latina empowerment brand based in Mission, Texas. Haley started this long before “Latina power” became an internet trend. Haley shares her "Why" and encourages other Latinas to "Do it scared", encouraging them to take the leap and begin their own journey.

In this episode:

• Growing up on Two and a Half Street: paleteros, panaderos, tortillas sold out of a car, and what real community looks like
• Starting a brand in October 2020 to show the beauty of the Rio Grande Valley while it was getting so much hate in the media
• “Do it scared”: betting on yourself when you’re not sure there’s room for you (spoiler: there is)
• The first business lesson Haley’s dad taught her: being his daughter didn’t get her bumped ahead of his paying customers
• Knowing when to stroke an ego and when to rein one in with vendors, suppliers, and customers
• Size-inclusive from S to 4XL, with no upcharge for bigger sizes, and why the 4X sells out first
• Why Haley never broadened her niche, and why a kid seeing “Super Mijita” on a shirt matters as much as seeing yourself in a book
• Fashion as activism, and the meaning behind the new Love Thy Neighbor design: cacti for resilience, monarchs for the immigrant journey, roses for the beauty in all of it
• Melly’s story of finding community in Memphis through a car decal, and a prayer vigil that left her hopeful
• Haley’s advice for new entrepreneurs: be careful about giving product away for free, wear your products, and be proud of what you built

Chapters
00:00 Welcome + meet Haley
01:30 The story behind the name
04:00 Growing up on Two and a Half Street
08:00 Starting a brand in 2020
14:30 Doing it scared + family as first investors
20:30 Dad’s first business lesson
25:30 Learning business without a business degree
31:30 Egos to stroke, egos to rein in
35:30 Staying in your niche
42:30 Size inclusivity with no upcharge
51:00 Fashion as activism + Love Thy Neighbor
55:00 Finding community in Memphis
1:07:30 Advice for new entrepreneurs
1:13:30 What’s next for Two and a Half Street

Links
🛍️ Shop Two and a Half Street: https://twoandahalfstreet.com
📚 Casa Luna Books: https://casalunabooks.com
🤝 Tennessee Immigrant & Refugee Rights Coalition (TIRRC): https://www.tirrc.org

The best way to support a Latina-owned small business costs nothing: share, follow, and tell your primas and tías.

Thanks for hanging out with us on Under the Moon. Stay curious, and keep the light on for the stories that need it most. 🌙

⚠️ Content warning: This episode discusses domestic violence, addiction, child sexual abuse, the loss of a parent, and childhood neglect. Take care of yourself. It's okay to come back to this one later.

Some books you read. Some books read you.

This week I sit down with Houston-born indie author Betty Feregrino, whose memoir, My Book Escape: Chapters of a Chicana, started as private journaling and became the book she spent her whole life looking for and never found. We talk about the night she couldn't say it out loud, why she wanted her family to buy the book but not read it, and how seeing her parents as "little kids that are unhealed too" changed everything.

We also get into the grace we hand our fathers and withhold from our mothers, growing up a "no sabo" kid with a Salvadoran dad and a Mexican mom, being part of the roughly 8% of Latino authors in publishing, and all the free ways you can support Latine authors right now. And yes, this is the first time you'll hear me cry on the mic.

Betty also shares the title of her next book for the very first time. 🌙

• My Book Escape: Chapters of a Chicana by Betty Feregrino. Get it at Casa Luna Books: https://casa-luna-books.myshopify.com/products/my-book-escape-chapters-of-a-chicana-by-betty-feregrino
• Coming soon from Betty: Dogs Have Nine Lives Too, a fantasy with magical realism (title revealed on this episode!)
• Push by Sapphire (mentioned)

• TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@bettyferegrinoauthor
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bettyferegrino.author
• Facebook: @bettyferegrino.author

• Each Step Home, the organization Betty supports, which helps children and families in U.S. immigration custody: https://eachstephome.org

• Free ways to support: get a library card and request Latine authors, then follow, comment, repost, and leave reviews.

• National Domestic Violence Hotline: 1-800-799-7233, or text START to 88788 · thehotline.org
• RAINN Sexual Assault Hotline: 1-800-656-4673 · rainn.org
• 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline: call or text 988 (Spanish available)
• 
  

Shop Latine, BIPOC & indie authors at Casa Luna Books: https://casa-luna-books.myshopify.comThanks for hanging out under the moon with me. Stay curious, stay in the know, and keep the light on for the stories that need it most.

This week I'm joined by Tanya Zuñiga, author of Threads of Her Braid and The Reckoning of Leonora Guerrero. Tanya is a first-gen Latina from San Diego, a high school Spanish teacher at the same school she graduated from, and one of the most thoughtful indie authors on my shelves.

We talk about her two very different books. Threads of Her Braid holds up a mirror for readers. Leonora asks you to question what you believe and why you believe it. We also get into the culture shock of going from a 99% Latino high school to university, and being told your accent is a flaw when it really means you speak two languages.

Tanya talks about having to prove herself on both sides of the border (ni de aquí, ni de allá) and about the criticism that sometimes comes from inside our own community. She explains why she never wanted a Big Five deal. In her words, she'd rather be picked up by the readers she writes for. Plus: why cover art is the one place you should never cut corners (or use AI), and why buying from indie bookshops comes back around to your community.

Pull up a chair. This one's a good one.

Chapters
00:00 Welcome
01:00 Meet Tanya: author, teacher, first-gen San Diegan
03:00 San Diego on the page, and that bridge in Leonora's opening
06:30 Threads of Her Braid: Aurora, Pilar, Fer, and Mexican history
10:30 Championing our own community first
14:30 Feeling seen vs. questioning yourself: two very different books
18:30 Indie doesn't mean low quality: editors, artists, and cover art
24:00 Accents, academia, and ni de aquí ni de allá
33:30 Survival mode and the criticism that comes from home
39:00 Latinas with master's degrees and why representation matters
43:00 No Big Five dreams: "picked up by the readers"
48:30 Where academic rigor meets lyrical writing
52:00 What to expect from The Reckoning of Leonora Guerrero (spoiler-free)
55:30 Where to buy and why indie bookshops matter
58:30 What's next for Tanya
1:01:00 Where to find Tanya + sign-off

Books mentioned

• Threads of Her Braid by Tanya Zuñiga, at Casa Luna Books: https://casa-luna-books.myshopify.com/products/threads-of-her-braid-tanya-zuniga
• The Reckoning of Leonora Guerrero by Tanya Zuñiga, at Casa Luna Books: https://casa-luna-books.myshopify.com/products/the-reckoning-of-leonora-guerrero-1
• Threads of Her Braid signed bookmark, at Casa Luna Books: https://casa-luna-books.myshopify.com/products/threads-of-her-braid-signed-bookmark-by-tanya-zuniga
• Hilos de su trenza (Spanish edition of Threads), via Tanya's site: https://www.tanyazuniga.com

Connect with Tanya

• Website: https://www.tanyazuniga.com
• Book club guides: https://www.tanyazuniga.com/bookclubguides
• Instagram: @tanya.zuniga.writes, https://www.instagram.com/tanya.zuniga.writes/
• TikTok: @tanya.zuniga.writes, https://www.tiktok.com/@tanya.zuniga.writes
• Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/57097865.Tanya_Zu_iga

Indie bookshop owners: Tanya said on the episode that if you want to carry her books, she's happy to send signed merch for free. Reach out through her website.

Also mentioned

• Episode 4 with Amor & Páginas PR
• @Tocororo Art, cover artist for The Reckoning of Leonora Guerrero
• @Taisartwork for Threads of Her Braid cover art
• Indie Author Revolution, the indie author network where Tanya recommends indie authors to network with other artists, editors, and writers.

Shop Casa Luna Books

• Latine Authors collection: https://casa-luna-books.myshopify.com/collections/latine-authors
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/casalunabooks/
• TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@casa.luna.books

This episode is about language as a gatekeeper in publishing. I sit down with Nicole Sánchez Castillo, a Colombian writer and linguist from Cartagena de Indias. She's 25, has published six books, and her newest, The Wolf, the Lamb, and the Butcher, is her English-language debut. It's a collection of horror, magical realism, and literary fiction stories that she translated herself from two of her Spanish-language books.

We talk about writing in her own Cartagena dialect, even though people look down on it; what gets lost in translation (and why some of her stories will never be translated); and the less than 1% of the US market that's translated fiction. We also get into how traditional publishing works differently in Latin America, the BookTok "fast fashion" problem, AI-written books, and the Amazon dilemma every indie author faces. Plus, Nicole tells us what she's reading: the dark, pre-Brothers Grimm fairy tales of Giambattista Basile.

In this episode

• 00:00 Intro: language as a gatekeeper
• 00:45 Meet Nicole Sánchez Castillo
• 02:30 How studying linguistics changed her writing, and the classism behind "proper" Spanish
• 05:00 Footnotes, Neruda, and what gets lost in translation
• 08:00 Translating her own work and hiring a native English editor
• 09:45 Why she writes in Spanish first, and why Belo: un héroe del campo stays in Spanish
• 13:00 Showing the Colombia tourists don't see
• 14:45 A self-imposed responsibility, and giving back to Cartagena
• 19:45 The true story behind "The Wolf, the Lamb, and the Butcher"
• 24:45 The translation gap in the US market
• 27:30 Building an English-speaking audience from scratch
• 31:30 How publishing works in Latin America vs. the US
• 33:30 BookTok, "fast fashion" books, and AI-written books
• 37:00 Amazon, Kindle Unlimited exclusivity, IngramSpark, and Buscalibre
• 41:30 What Nicole's reading now

Get Nicole's books

• The Wolf, the Lamb, and the Butcher (English), available at Casa Luna Books: casalunabooks.com
• The same book on Buscalibre US: https://www.buscalibre.us/libro-wolf-the-lamb-and-the-butcher/9798259277380/p/68405271

Buy direct from Nicole on Buscalibre.

• All of Nicole's books on Buscalibre US: https://www.buscalibre.us/libros/autor/nicole-sanchez-castillo
• Solo quedaron las cáscaras: https://www.buscalibre.us/libro-solo-quedaron-las-cascaras/9786280188133/p/64577398
• Hija: https://www.buscalibre.us/libro-hija/9786280168081/p/63759382
• Inhumana: https://www.buscalibre.us/libro-inhumana/9786280220642/p/65301920
• Belo: un héroe del campo: https://www.buscalibre.us/libro-belo-un-heroe-del-campo/9786280231068/p/66882184
• ¡Vuela alto, Emma!: https://www.buscalibre.us/libro-vuela-alto-emma/9786280157429/p/63464969
• If you're in Latin America, use Buscalibre Colombia: https://www.buscalibre.com.co/libros/autor/nicole-sanchez-castillo

Coming soon: Una deuda siniestra, Nicole's first horror novel, comes out in Spanish this October. The English translation, A Dark Debt, is planned for next year.

Follow Nicole

• Instagram: @nicole.san.c
• TikTok: @nicole.san.c
• Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/23359399.Nicole_S_nchez_Castillo

Mentioned in this episode

• The Pentamerone (Lo cunto de li cunti / The Tale of Tales) by Giambattista Basile

Follow Casa Luna Unshelved
Find us at casalunabooks.com and @casalunabooks on all social media platforms!

If this episode meant something to you, follow the show and share it with someone who needs to hear it.

We talk a lot on this show about what to read — but what happens after a book exists? Once it's written, published, and real, how does anyone actually find out about it?

This week I'm pulling back a curtain I didn't fully understand myself until recently: the world of book publicity. I sat down with Johanna (@nana.burgos) and Carla (@karla_is_reading), the duo behind Amor & Páginas PR — a Latine-owned PR company that started as a buddy read and grew into one of the most trusted names in Latinx romance advocacy.

We get into how their friendship (and business) started with a DM slide, why Latinx literature keeps getting treated as "one elective" instead of a whole world, what ARC teams and street teams actually are (and why saying yes to one is a bigger responsibility than most new readers realize), how they vet the authors they work with, and why they believe community is supposed to be inconvenient. We close out with book recs, including a sapphic Latine release you'll want to preorder before this episode even airs.

In this episode:

• How Amor & Páginas went from a buddy-read Instagram Live series to a full PR company

• Why "diversity has to earn its place" thinking keeps Latine stories at the back of the shelf

• What ARC readers, street teams, and PR boxes actually involve — and why follow-through matters

• How Johanna and Carla vet authors around values before taking them on as clients

• Affordable ways to read more Latine and BIPOC stories: library cards, Libby, free little libraries, and requesting titles from your library

• What's coming next for Amor & Páginas, including a Latine Heritage Month campaign

Books mentioned:

• Shooting for las Estrellas by K.L. Hernandez (out September 18 — sapphic, Latine)
• The Vulnerables by Sigrid Nunez
• Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler
• Solitaria by Eliana Alves Cruz (translated, Afro-Brazilian author)
• The Sleeping Sisters by Jennifer Givhan

Find Amor & Páginas:
Instagram & TikTok: @amorandpaginaspr
Johanna: @nana.burgos | Carla: @karla_is_reading

Find Casa Luna Books: casalunabooks.com

Are you an indie author or do you know one on IngramSpark? Send Melly a message — she's always adding new titles to the shop.

Thanks for hanging out under the moon. Stay curious, stay in the know, and keep the light on for the stories that need it most.

Guest: Scarlett Chase

Scarlett Chase writes contemporary spicy romance across what she calls the Scarlett Chase Universe — RomComs, darker-themed stories, and everything in between, built around BIPOC leads, interracial relationships, and zero apology for the heat. 

In this episode, we talk about growing up in a strict Catholic household, the silence around bodies and sex in Latine and BIPOC families, and what it means to write pleasure and joy as its own form of representation.

Her debut, Between Pages and Sheets, first published in 2021, was reissued in 2024 with bonus scenes and a new cover. Her most recent release, Anything You Want, is a Domme-and-two-roommates RomCom available everywhere except Amazon.

Find Scarlett:

• Website: authorscarlettchase.com
• Books: authorscarlettchase.com/books
• Facebook: facebook.com/Scarlett-Chase-108173301646380
• Facebook Group: facebook.com/groups/1016819102446218 
• TikTok: @authorscarlettchase

Between Pages and Sheets

• Ebook (direct) · Paperback (direct/Lulu) · Barnes & Noble · All ebook stores

Anything You Want

• Ebook (direct) · Barnes & Noble (paperback) · All ebook stores

Send us Fan Mail

If you enjoyed this episode, consider sharing it with a friend or tag us on social media @casalunabooks across all platforms! 

Be sure to follow the podcast and keep the conversation going! 

Representation and change happen with small, intentional actions! 

Last episode, we laid out the numbers — only 5% of widely read novels published between 1950 and 2018 were by BIPOC authors. So this episode picks up the harder question: if these stories aren't coming through traditional publishing, where do we actually find them?

We're pulling back the curtain on how indie authors get discovered (and sometimes don't) — the print-on-demand system behind online bookshops like Casa Luna, the hidden costs authors eat when a book gets returned, and why the consignment model that works for brick-and-mortar shops can't scale the same way online. Plus, real, no-purchase-required ways you can start supporting these stories today.

And because talk is only half the show, I'm sharing five books currently on my shelves — from authors I found the exact same way you might: through TikTok, through community, through paying attention. Meet Tanya Zuniga, Betty Feregrino, Nicole Sanchez Castillo, Rios De La Luz, and Millie Perez, plus a bonus recommendation from Esa Seegulam.

Use code Unshelved for 10% off every title mentioned at https://casa-luna-books.myshopify.com/

Itza: Rios de la Luz

Daughter of Rot: Rios de la Luz

https://interstellarbruja.bigcartel.com/

https://casa-luna-books.myshopify.com/products/itza-rios-de-la-luz

TikTok & IG: @riosdelaluz

My Books Escape: Chapters of a Chicana: A memoir

https://casa-luna-books.myshopify.com/products/my-book-escape-chapters-of-a-chicana-by-betty-feregrino

TikTok & IG: bettyferegrino.author

Threads of Her Braid: Tanya Zuñiga

https://www.tanyazuniga.com/

https://casa-luna-books.myshopify.com/products/threads-of-her-braid-tanya-zuniga

TikTok & IG: @tanya.Zuniga.writes

The Wolf, The Lamb and The Butcher: Nicole Sanchez Castillo

https://linktr.ee/nicole.san.c

https://casa-luna-books.myshopify.com/products/the-wolf-the-lamb-and-the-butcher-other-short-stories-nicole-sanchez-castillo?_pos=2&_sid=d654fbb60&_ss=r

TikTok & IG: @nicole.san.c  and @authornicole.sc

The Philosophy of Schmutz : M. E. Seegulam, PHD

https://www.myschmutz.com/

https://casa-luna-books.myshopify.com/products/the-philosophy-of-schmutz-what-a-one-eyed-cat-taught-me-about-love-presence-and-letting-go-seegulam-m-e?_pos=1&_sid=6d4fbd180&_ss=r 

TikTok & IG : @my_schmutz

Millie Perez - Latino Contemporary Romance Collection

https://millieperezauthor.com/

https://casa-luna-books.myshopify.com/search?q=millie+perez&options%5Bprefix%5D=last

TikTok & IG: @millieperezauthor

Send us Fan Mail

If you enjoyed this episode, consider sharing it with a friend or tag us on social media @casalunabooks across all platforms! 

Be sure to follow the podcast and keep the conversation going! 

Representation and change happen with small, intentional actions! 

Did you know that only 5% of widely read novels from major publishers between 1950 and 2018 were written by BIPOC authors?

Grab your cafecito and sit down for this one, because in this week's episode, we explore what it truly looks like for BIPOC authors in the publishing industry, how Indie Bookstores support them, and how you can make a difference in these statistics with minimal effort and more conscientious choices. 

What are you willing to give up in the name of representation?

Additional Show Notes: Reflect sources for factual data presented in this episode. 

**Primary source:** Richard Jean So & Gus Wezerek, *"Just How White Is the Book Industry?"* — *The New York Times*, Dec. 11, 2020. Based on a dataset of ~8,000 fiction books by ~4,100 authors published by major U.S. houses between 1950–2018.
 - The study found **95% of these books were by white authors**, meaning BIPOC authors accounted for the remaining ~5%.
 - Independently confirmed by PEN America's *"Reading Between the Lines"* report, which cites the same 95%/5% figure.
- Penguin Random House released internal survey data showing **23.5% of authors published 2019–2021 identified as people of color.**
 - Hachette Book Group's 2022 diversity update reported **34% of 2021 book acquisitions were with self-identified BIPOC authors/illustrators**, up from 29% (2020) and 22% (2019). Source: Hachette Book Group, *"An Update on HBG's Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Efforts,"* March 2022.
 - PEN America's report confirms that, as of August 2022, the other three of the Big Five had not made comparable author diversity data public.
Cristina Rivera Garza — awards named in the episode
 - **Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz Prize** — won twice (one of only two authors to do so).
 - **MacArthur Fellowship** — awarded 2020.
 - Confirmed via Wikipedia, University of Houston faculty page, and multiple news outlets (Houston Chronicle, Houston Public Media, CultureMap Houston).
 - Rivera Garza also won the **2024 Pulitzer Prize for Memoir or Autobiography** for *Liliana's Invincible Summer* 

Send us Fan Mail

If you enjoyed this episode, consider sharing it with a friend or tag us on social media @casalunabooks across all platforms! 

Be sure to follow the podcast and keep the conversation going! 

Representation and change happen with small, intentional actions! 

 Episode 0: Welcome to the Shelf
Before we dive into books, guests, and everything in between, take five minutes to hear what is behind Casa Luna Unshelved. In this quick intro, I share why representation in literature matters so much, what pushed me to open Casa Luna Books, and what to expect from the show going forward. Welcome to the shelf — glad you're here. Hope you stay. 

Send us Fan Mail

If you enjoyed this episode, consider sharing it with a friend or tag us on social media @casalunabooks across all platforms! 

Be sure to follow the podcast and keep the conversation going! 

Representation and change happen with small, intentional actions!