Conversations with Angela Cervantes

Today we’d like to introduce you to Angela Cervantes.

Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
I became a writer around the age of nine years old, but I didn’t become a published children’s author until the publication of my first novel, Gaby, Lost and Found in 2012.

From a very early age, I knew I wanted to be a writer. I began writing poetry, scary stories, and novels when I was a kid growing up in Topeka, Kansas. I completed my first novel when I was ten years old. It was a sequel to the C.S. Lewis’ Narnia Chronicle books and included Mexican American characters named Princess Esperanza de Castillo and Captain Javi Sepulveda.

I knew there was nothing else in the world I wanted to be other than a writer. Of course, at that time, I had no idea how someone become a published children’s author. No author ever visited my school. No one in my family was a published children’s author. And although I grew up in a Mexican American community full of artists, none were children’s authors.

On top of that, every book in our school library was written by a white non-Latinx author so I wasn’t even sure if it was possible for me to become a published author. Fortunately, I had very supportive parents and encouraging teachers who believed in my dream, so I never gave up.

After graduating from the University of Kansas, the desire to be a published author grew more. When I moved to Kansas City after a two-year stint in Guadalajara, Mexico. I formed a Chicana poetry group called Las Poetas in Kansas City with some other Chicanas. Later on, we allowed males into the group and changed our name to the Latino Writers Collective.

As part of that poetry community, I was invited to a local writers’ conference where I met a literary agent who encouraged me to get busy on a manuscript. When I was done with the manuscript, she signed me. My first children’s novel, Gaby Lost and Found was published by Scholastic two years later. Now, I’m working on book #8.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
On my road to publishing, my first novel was rejected numerous times and I had this point where I wondered if my dream to be a children’s author was ever going to happen, but I didn’t have anything else I wanted to do so I kept working at it and eventually I received an offer.

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I’m a published children’s author. I write middle-grade novels for children ages 7 to 12. I try to stay true to this one principle: write the stories that I wanted to read when I was a kid. Due to that personal mission, I draw inspiration from my childhood and my Mexican American community. My stories always have Latinx protagonists trying to save the world, save a cat or solve a mystery, which I know that nine-year-old Angela would have loved.

My published books include the following:

• Encanto: The Junior Novelization (Disney)
• Lead with your Heart (American Girl Inc.)
• Lety Out Loud (Scholastic)
• Coco: The Junior Novelization (Disney)
• Me, Frida, and The Secret of the Peacock Ring (Scholastic)
• Allie, First at Last (Scholastic)
• Gaby, Lost and Found (Scholastic)

Any big plans?
Presently, I’m working on a new children’s novel. It’s a story based on a scary story I made up when I was a kid. It’ll be my first scary book and I can’t wait for the kids to read it.Contact Info:

• Email: [email protected]
• Website: angelacervantes.com
• Instagram: @angelacervantes_author
• Facebook: Angela Cervantes-Author
• Twitter: @AngelaCervantes
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCn1pPcklkI69MDr_N6O3jGQ