Winter Read 2023

Each winter, we read a story together.

The 2023 Winter Read is Sabrina & Corina: Stories by Kali Fajardo-Anstine.

The book, in English and Spanish, is available for checkout at The Community Library.

Books are also available with our partner libraries in Hailey, Bellevue, and Stanley.

Find Sabrina & Corina: Stories in all formats at The Community Library here.

About Sabrina & Corina

Here are stories that blaze like wildfires, with characters who made me laugh and broke my heart.

—Sandra Cisneros

WINNER OF THE AMERICAN BOOK AWARD • FINALIST FOR THE STORY PRIZE • FINALIST FOR THE PEN/ROBERT W. BINGHAM PRIZE FOR DEBUT SHORT STORY COLLECTION

Kali Fajardo-Anstine’s magnetic story collection breathes life into her Latina characters of indigenous ancestry and the land they inhabit in the American West. Against the remarkable backdrop of Denver, Colorado—a place that is as fierce as it is exquisite—these women navigate the land the way they navigate their lives: with caution, grace, and quiet force.

In “Sugar Babies,” ancestry and heritage are hidden inside the earth but tend to rise during land disputes. “Any Further West” follows a sex worker and her daughter as they leave their ancestral home in southern Colorado only to find a foreign and hostile land in California. In “Tomi,” a woman leaves prison and finds herself in a gentrified city that is a shadow of the one she remembers from her childhood. And in the title story, “Sabrina & Corina,” a Denver family falls into a cycle of violence against women, coming together only through ritual.

Sabrina & Corina is a moving narrative of unrelenting feminine power and an exploration of the universal experiences of abandonment, heritage, and an eternal sense of home.

Read a summary of all the stories in Sabrina & Corina here.

2023 Winter Read Events

Programs

Feb. 2 – Winter Read Kickoff and Exhibition Opening

Feb. 10 – Chicano Literature & Culture with Dr. Dora Ramírez, Boise State University

February 13 – A Storyteller’s Guide To Changing The World with Tai Simpson

Feb. 16 – Creating an Inclusive Outdoors while Elevating Latino Environmental Activism with Oliva Juarez, Green Latinos

Mar. 2 – “Warrior Women” Film Screening and Q&A

Mar. 9 – Closing Event and Keynote with author Kali Fajardo-Anstine

Exhibits

“Las Catrinas: A Celebration of Mexican Culture” featuring art by Carlos Lecanda

Come see our newest exhibit in the Library foyer, “Las Catrinas: A Celebration of Mexican Culture,” featuring the delightful papier-mâché art of Carlos Lecanda. Crafted with intricate detail and expert technique, the exhibit showcases a variety of traditional characters with an exclusive art piece inspired by Fajardo-Anstine’s Sabrina & Corina: Stories.

Discussions

Feb 1-22 – Winter Read Book Group (Each Wednesday)

Feb. 9 – Stanley Community Library

Feb. 21 – The Community Library

Feb. 23 – Bellevue Public Library

Feb. 26 – Virtual Discussion over Zoom with The Community Library

Feb. 28 – Hailey Public Library

Contest

The book Sabrina & Corina shares short stories involving different family dynamics as they navigate through life changes. Write your own short story or essay about a time your family had a shift with a lasting impact on you. You are also welcome to interpret the prompt through another creative medium like art, photography, music, etcetera. Open to all ages! Submissions are due March 2, 2023, and can be emailed to mwilliams@comlib.org. Winners will be announced at our March 9 closing event.

About the Author

Kali Fajardo-Anstine is the nationally bestselling author of the novel Woman of Light (One World, 2022) and the widely acclaimed short story collection Sabrina & Corina (One World, 2019), a finalist for the National Book Award, the PEN/Bingham Prize, The Clark Prize, The Story Prize, the Saroyan International Prize and winner of an American Book Award. She is the 2021 recipient of the Addison M. Metcalf Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She is the 2022 – 2024 Endowed Chair in Creative Writing at Texas State University.

Fajardo-Anstine has written for The New York Times, The Atlantic, Harper’s Bazaar, ELLE, O the Oprah Magazine, The American Scholar, Boston Review, and elsewhere. Her stories have been translated into numerous languages including Japanese, Italian, German, Slovenian, Spanish, and Turkish.

Fajardo-Anstine has received fellowships from Yaddo (2017, 2021), MacDowell (2018, 2021), Hedgebrook, and Tin House. Her work has been honored with the Denver Mayor’s Award for Global Impact in the Arts, and the Mountains and Plains Independent Booksellers Association Reading The West Award in Fiction.

Fajardo-Anstine was born in Denver, Colorado and is the second eldest of seven siblings. She dropped out of high school weeks into her senior year, earning her GED and going on to graduate with a BA in English and Minor in Chicana/o Studies from Metropolitan State University of Denver. She holds an MFA from the University of Wyoming and worked for over a decade as an independent bookseller at West Side Books in North Denver.