Join us as we welcome Andrés N. Ordorica in conversation with Dean Atta to celebrate the publication of Andrés' debut novel, How We Named The Stars, a dazzling tale of first love and first loss, of hiding, heartbreak and healing, and of the comfort found in stories of the past and in the arms of elders, living and dead.
‘Hearing you say my name was a way of seeing myself as I had never seen myself … you gave my name new meaning, new weight.’Nerdy and shy, scholarship student Daniel de La Luna arrives at college nervous to meet his golden-haired, athletic roommate, whose Facebook photos depict a boy just like those who made Daniel’s school years hell.Sam Morris is not what he had imagined, though. As the two settle into college life they drink tequila under the stars, go on long runs through snow-covered hills, explore freshman nightlife, and inch closer until they find themselves in love.But their blissful first year is over all too soon. Daniel’s summer in his ancestral homeland of México becomes a rollercoaster of revelations, before his life is brutally upended by the unimaginable.How We Named the Stars is a tale of love, heartache and learning to honour the dead. Daniel and Sam will leave you forever changed.Andrés N. Ordorica is a queer Latinx writer based in Edinburgh. Drawing on his family’s immigrant history and his own third culture upbringing, his writing maps the journey of diaspora and unpacks what it means to be from ni de aquí, ni de allá (neither here, nor there). He is the author of the poetry collection At Least This I Know. His writing has been shortlisted for the Morley Prize for Unpublished Writers of Colour, the Mo Siewcharran Prize and the Saltire Society’s Poetry Book of The Year. How We Named the Stars is his first novel. He serves as a trustee and board member for Artlink Edinburgh. He is passionate about advocating for increased opportunities for marginalised communities to engage with the creative arts.
Dean Atta is an award-winning Black British author and poet of Greek Cypriot and Jamaican heritage. He is the author of I Am Nobody’s Nigger, The Black Flamingo, Only On The Weekends, There is (still) love here, Confetti, and Person Unlimited. Dean lives in London.
