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Raquel Z. Rivera is currently at work on a novel entitled The Red Behind the Blue, a breakup story set in the underbelly of El Barrio/East Harlem—a tiny corner of the world populated by young musicians and other struggling artists and dreamers who love and fight each other in the name of honoring traditions and community-building. The project draws from Rivera’s ethnographic, journalistic and artistic endeavors in the neighborhood that has been her home for close to a decade.
Excerpts of this work-in-progress have been published in Claridad and Hostos Review/Revista Hostosiana. She has read excerpts at literary events and conferences at Lava Gina Bar (2006), Hostos Community College (2005, 2004), Bronx Academy of the Arts and Dance (2005), Boricua College (2005, 2004) and Bowery Poetry Club (2004). The novel is closely related to Rivera’s work as a singer-songwriter with Puerto Rican and Dominican roots music groups since 1999. She has performed with Pa’ lo Monte, Palo Mayor and Los Bomberos de Brooklyn. She is a founding and former member of Yerbabuena, and a current member of bomba group Alma Moyo. For more information on Alma Moyo visit www.almamoyo.com. Raquel Z. Rivera is also a founding member of Yaya, an all-women’s collective dedicated to learning, jamming, teaching and performing Puerto Rican bomba and Dominican salves. Some of Yaya’s recent performances include Chicago (AfriCaribe Conference), Philadelphia (Feria del Barrio), Washington D.C. (National Museum of American History) and New York (Hostos Community College, Nuyorican Poets Café, Satalla Temple of World Music, Symphony Space and New York University).
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