Happy news to share about Melissa Castillo-Garsow: her new book, La Verdad: An International Dialogue on Hip Hop Latinidades (Ohio UP), will be released on Oct. 27. A truly international effort, La Verdad brings together exciting new work about Latino/a hip hop across more than a dozen countries, from scholars and practitioners in the United States and in Latin America, highlighting in new ways the participation of women, indigenous peoples, and Afro-descendants in a reimagined global, hip hop nation. From graffitera crews in Costa Rica and Nicaragua to Mexican hip hop in New York, from Aymara rap in Bolivia to Chicano rap in Taiwan, this volume explodes stereotypes of who and how hip hop is consumed, lived, and performed. Examining hip hop 
movements in Spanish, English, Portuguese, Aymara, and Creole, La Verdad demonstrates that Latino hip hop is a multilingual expression of gender, indigeneity, activism, and social justice.
Earlier this year, Melissa’s debut poetry book, Coatlicue Eats the Apple, was released by Pulse publishing.
Additionally, Melissa has had two book chapters published this year: “Afro-Latin@ Nueva York: Maymie De Mena and the Unsung Afro-Latina Leadership of the UNIA,” in Movement: Critical Approaches to Blackness and Transnationalism in the Americas (Palgrave, May 2016) and “Hermandad, Arte and Rebeldia: Mexican Popular Art in New York City,” in The Routledge Companion to Latina/o Popular Culture (Routledge, June 2016).