Anita Pelayo Rivera was born and raised in Los Angeles but grew up in Boston, Massachusetts where she embarked on her college education as an adult learner. She is a self-taught harpist, photographer and retired French teacher for which she earned two French teaching licenses at an age that most experts would deem too old to acquire a second language. She is the debut author of No Longer Mija: A Daughter’s Journey, a collection etched by an ambitious spirit amid loss, grief and the search for identity. She resides in Minneapolis with her husband of 42 years.
PRAISE:
Anita Pelayo Rivera’s No Longer Mija: A Daughter’s Journey is a brilliant memoir, a deeply personalcombination of poetry and prose that captures the complexities of identity, heritage, grief, andbelonging. The book traverses the emotional geography of Rivera’s life — from her early yearsin Los Angeles, to her journey through education and motherhood, to the quiet reckonings thatarrive with time and distance.What makes this collection unforgettable is Rivera’s ability to intertwine intimate familymemories with the larger socio-cultural currents that shaped her. Her poetic voice is both searingand tender, unafraid to expose generational wounds while holding space for small, redemptivemoments.For readers who appreciate memoirs that read like poetry, or poetry that tells the story of alife, No Longer Mija: A Daughter’s Journey is a gift. It invites us to bear witness to a woman reclaiming her story, one radiant line at a time.
—Christen Hammons, Director of Publishing/Editor-in-Chief, Bella Grace, The Cozy Issue, Field Guide to Everyday Magic, Book of Lists, Somerset Studio, GreenCraft Magazine
In this immersive collection, Anita Pelayo Rivera renders her journey through expansive poems tethered by moments of family, identity, and growth. While unflinching in documenting pain, she brings a poet’s eye and a healing to the wonder of experiences that might otherwise go unnoticed. From two clouds, “rinsing/their differences through a veil of mizzle,” to the “bold love” in the knotted roots of a chestnut tree, Rivera uses the ordinary as guideposts to map her own extraordinary journey. Throughout, the harsh epiphanies of cultural expectation are leavened by moments of joy, connection, and love.
—Michelle Filkins, Editor, Spout Press, Professor, Metro State University
Through textured language and luminous imagery, Anita Pelayo Rivera distills the ordinary into the extraordinary—moments that quicken the spirit. From tracing lineage through the sensory act of eating a peach to a day at the laundromat where the wash becomes a galaxy and her “mother’s breath is stilled by / the milky way,” these poems shimmer with ancestral memory and quiet wonder. This is a remarkable debut from a poet whose voice is sure to leave a lasting mark on the landscape of American letters.
–Erin Ganaway, Author of Memories of Green and The Waiting Girl
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