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Author Talk: Lotería

Stories by Cynthia Pelayo

There are 54 cards in the Lotería game, and for this short story collection you will find one unique story per card based on a Latin American myth, folklore, superstition, or belief.

The Mexican board game of Lotería is a game of chance—similar to bingo. However, in Lotería instead of matching up numbers on a game board, players match up images. Many of these legends existed long before their European counterparts—passed throughout the Americas via word of mouth, collected just like the tales the Brothers Grimm.

This collection features creatures and monsters, vampires, werewolves and more!

Please join us as we hear more about these Latin American fairytales with a horrifying slant! Following the conversation, attendees will have the chance to play Loteria for DCPL branded prizes! Game play will be hosted by Karla Fuentes, Board Member & Community Engagement Chair, Corazón Folklórico DC.

About the Book:

Lotería is a haunting, folkloric, and deeply imaginative collection in which Cynthia Pelayo transforms the 54 cards of the traditional Mexican game Lotería into a series of dark, uncanny, and emotionally charged stories. Each card — La Dama, El Gallo, La Muerte, El Diablo, and so on — becomes a narrative doorway into a world shaped by myth, superstition, and the blurred line between the living and the dead.

Pelayo’s approach is both structural and symbolic: the book mirrors the rhythm of the game itself. Just as players wait for the caller to announce the next card, readers move through the collection anticipating what new terror, creature, or moral warning will emerge from the next image. The result is a reading experience that feels ritualistic, almost ceremonial, as if each card is being “drawn” from a cultural archive of fear and wonder.

About the Author:

Cynthia Pelayo is a Bram Stoker Award–winning and International Latino Book Award–winning author and poet — the first Latina and the first Puerto Rican to win the Bram Stoker Award. She writes fairy tales that blend genre and explore grief, mourning, and cycles of violence. Chicago is not her setting. Chicago is her cosmology.

She holds a Master of Science from Roosevelt University and an MFA in Writing from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and is pursuing a PhD in English. In 2026 she completed the Odyssey Writing Workshop and was in residence at Ragdale.

In Conversation With:

Manuel Ricardo Cuellar is associate professor of Latin American and Latinx Studies at The George Washington University. His research primarily engages questions of performance, especially as they concern dance, indigeneity, and Afro-mestizo imaginaries in Mexico and the United States, combining ethnographic fieldwork, archival research, and studies of contemporary and classical Nahuatl, Mexico’s most widely spoken and written Indigenous language. He is the author of Choreographing Mexico: Festive Performances and Dancing Histories of a Nation (UT Press 2022), winner of the 2023 de la Torre Bueno First Book Award by the Dance Studies Association. Cuellar is also a dramaturg and choreographer and serves as an academic advisor with Corazón Folklórico Dance Company and the Latinx Movement Festival in Washington, D.C.

About the Loteria Game Host:

Karla L. Fuentes is a Mexican-born community leader, connector, and humanities practitioner whose work centers on culture, storytelling, community engagement, cultural education, healing, and empowerment. She currently serves as a Humanities Practitioner with the Latinx Movement Festival, where she  documents the stories and creative processes of participating artists through interviews and storytelling, helping preserve their work as part of the festival’s archive.

Karla is also a Board Member and Community Engagement Chair for Corazón Folklórico DC, leading initiatives that strengthen cultural preservation and broaden access to traditional Mexican dance and heritage. As the founder of JELEVA Services, she supports individuals through services centered on self-discovery, empowerment, healing, and personal growth.

In addition to her community work, Karla is the creator and host of Despertando al Son de Mi Voz, a Spanish-language podcast dedicated to exploring healing, identity, personal growth, culture, and lived experiences. Across all her roles, Karla is deeply committed to creating spaces where people can heal, connect, feel seen, share their stories, and celebrate their culture and traditions .

Hispanic Heritage Month, celebrated each year from September 15 to October 15, is a national observance that honors the histories, cultures, and contributions of people whose ancestors came from Spain, Mexico, the Caribbean, Central America, and South America. The month begins on September 15 to mark the independence anniversaries of Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua, followed closely by Mexico on September 16 and Chile on September 18.

Across the country, Hispanic Heritage Month is a time to recognize the vibrancy, resilience, creativity, and influence of Hispanic and Latino communities — communities that have shaped the arts, literature, foodways, public service, activism, and everyday life in Washington, DC.

At DC Public Library, we celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month by uplifting stories, voices, and traditions that reflect the diversity of the District. Our programming centers the lived experiences of DC’s Latino communities, offering opportunities for learning, joy, connection, and cultural pride.

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