Write…Reflect…Reimagine Ⓡ is the official podcast of Casa de María Publisher, an independent publishing house committed to amplifying diverse and underrepresented voices.
This podcast series is a sanctuary for emerging and established marginalized writers, poets, and screenwriters seeking both inspiration and practical strategies to navigate the publishing world.
Each episode features powerful conversations with published authors, visionary poets, and industry professionals who have carved their own path in a system that often overlooks their stories.
Listeners will gain access to behind-the-scenes insight, creative routines, and actionable advice—from writing residencies to manuscript pitching, self-publishing, traditional routes, and everything in between.
What do we carry as writers? What do we claim? And what becomes possible when we make room for one another? In this episode of Write… Reflect… Reimagine®, Dr. Vilma Luz Cabán reflects on What We Carry, What We Claim: Latina Writers on Voice, Memory, and Becoming, a Casa de María Publisher literary gathering held inside Dwight Hall at Yale University during Hispanic Heritage Month. Moving beyond the event itself, Dr. Cabán explores the experiences, memories, histories, silences, and people we ...
30 Aug 2026
Writing Through Rejection
Sometimes rejection never comes from a publisher. It begins much earlier, in the private conversations writers have with themselves. Is my writing good enough? Who would want to read this? How can I compete when I don’t have thousands of followers? And what happens if my work actually does get published and people I know begin reading it? In Episode 18 of Write… Reflect… Reimagine®, Dr. Vilma Luz Cabán explores the fears that can quietly keep writers from moving their work forward. She consid...
4 Aug 2026
Where Writers Gather: Summer Reflections
This summer marked a meaningful turning point for Casa de María Publisher. As Write... Reflect... Reimagine® continued to grow into an international community of listeners spanning 22 countries and 97 cities, those conversations found a new expression through Casa de María's inaugural writing retreats and residencies in Puerto Rico. Recorded from the rural town of Toa Alta, this reflective episode invites listeners into the quieter moments that surrounded personalized writing residencies. Whi...
2 Jul 2026
Emilio J. Vargas: Bridging Hearts Through Story
What does it truly mean to belong? In this heartfelt conversation, host Dr. Vilma Luz Cabán welcomes Puerto Rican author, broadcaster, and foster care advocate Emilio J. Vargas. As the first Latino male author featured on Write, Reflect, Reimagine®, Emilio reflects on the experiences that shaped his life and writing. He shares how a childhood fascination with radio eventually led him to become a foster and adoptive father, revealing that some of life's most meaningful stories are born when we...
27 Jun 2026
From Abuelita's Kitchen to Happy Belly: When Food, Culture, and Legacy Become a Book
Some of our most treasured family stories are never written down. They live in recipes passed from one generation to the next, in the aroma of a favorite meal, and in the loving hands that prepared it. In this heartfelt episode of Write... Reflect... Reimagine®, Dr. Vilma Luz Cabán welcomes Kristina Cruz Diaz, affectionately known as "Chef Red," the founder of HappyBelly, LLC, a Puerto Rican cultural cook, food consultant, caterer, entrepreneur, and community educator. Together they explore h...
27 Apr 2026
The Courage to Begin with Peggy Robles-Alvarado
Writing, Community, and Staying with the Work! Today’s episode invites us into a powerful conversation about writing, community, and what it means to stay with the work. Dr. Vilma Luz Cabán is joined by award-winning poet, performer, educator, and RoblesWrites Productions founder Peggy Robles-Alvarado, whose work spans poetry, performance, and community-centered literary practice. At the heart of this conversation is her acclaimed poetry collection, Burn Me Back, a work that moves through mem...
17 Apr 2026
From Hands to Page: Art into Writing with Lisa Valle
In this episode of Write… Reflect… Reimagine, I sit down at Casa de María Publisher's headquarters in Toa Alta, Puerto Rico, for a deeply personal conversation with Nuyorican artist, artisan, and cultural anthropologist Lisa Valle. Together, we reflect on what it means to create with our hands, to carry memory through art, and to navigate identity across Borikén and the Diaspora. Lisa shares the stories behind her powerful installation work featured in Arte de Tierra y Mar at Boricua Col...
22 Mar 2026
The Power of Story: Our Event at Yale University
In this episode, we return to March 7, 2026. It is a reflection on Grace & Boldness: Latina Voices for Change, the first public event hosted by Casa de María Publisher at Yale University. We revisit key ideas from the keynote address, beginning with a central truth: storytelling is not separate from social justice. It is often where the work begins. Before policy is debated and community change is ratified, someone tells the story of what is happening. In doing so, this act asserts ...
12 Mar 2026
The Legacy of Speaking Up (Jacquelyn Santiago)
What happens when speaking up becomes more than a single moment of courage? In Episode 11 of the Casa de María Publisher Podcast — Write… Reflect… Reimagine, Dr. Vilma Luz Cabán sits down with nationally recognized violence-prevention leader and youth advocate Jacquelyn Santiago for a conversation about voice, service, and the legacy that grows from speaking when silence once felt safer. Jacquelyn Santiago is a respected author, community leader, and advocate whose work centers youth empowerm...
11 Mar 2026
Sustaining A Writing Life
What allows a writer to continue, not just for a single manuscript, but across years of creative life? In this episode of the Casa de María Publisher Podcast, we explore what it means to sustain a writing life beyond deadlines, publication milestones, or moments of urgency. Many writers begin during periods of intensity. Perhaps it was after loss, a life transition, or a moment that demands to be written. But sustaining a writing life requires something different. It requires rhythm, care, an...
11 Mar 2026
Our Writing Community, Retreats, and Creative Spaces
In this episode of the Casa de María Publisher Podcast — Write… Reflect… Reimagine, we reflect on the creative conditions that allow writers to continue their work when the path forward becomes less clear. Dr. Vilma Luz Cabán explores how literary spaces, both physical and virtual, can help writers return to the page with renewed clarity and discipline. From writing retreats in Puerto Rico, reflective online writing webinars, and the Casa de María curated anthology, this episode introdu...
4 Feb 2026
Publishing Pathways Explained
In Publishing Pathways Explained, Dr. Vilma Luz Cabán offers a transparent, grounded conversation about publishing models, support structures, and what it truly means to publish with integrity. This episode examines what self-publishing actually requires of writers, beyond the promise of speed and control. We talk plainly about the professional labor writers are often asked to carry alone—editing, design, distribution, marketing, legal decisions—and the hidden financial, emotional, and cognit...
4 Feb 2026
After Survival: Choosing Voice with Author Daisy Plaza
What happens after survival? After the body has endured. After the danger has passed. When the question is no longer Can I survive this? but instead How do I speak from what I lived through? In this episode of the Casa de María Podcast, I’m joined by Daisy Plaza, author of I Did It for Her, for a conversation about voice, authorship, and what it means to write from readiness. Together, we reflect on how the meaning of “her” has shifted over time, how a writer knows when a story is truly ready...
4 Feb 2026
The Mango Tree: The Story of Our Logo
Every story begins somewhere. Ours begins beneath a tree. This episode explores the living history behind the Casa de María Publisher logo—the mango tree rooted in land shaped by labor, memory, and endurance. Through this image, we reflect on authorship as something cultivated, not extracted. Writing, like fruit, ripens in its own time. When held with care, it becomes nourishment. This is a story about roots, offerings, and the responsibility of carrying stories forward. Coming next: After Su...
18 Jan 2026
From Memory to Memoir
How does memory become memoir? In this episode, Dr. Vilma Luz Cabán turns toward memory as it actually arrives—not as a tidy timeline or complete account, but as sensation, interruption, and return. From Memory to Memoir invites writers to sit beside memory rather than interrogate it, and to understand memoir as a practice of attention, not extraction. Through imagery and reflection, this conversation explores why memoir does not ask us to remember everything, but to notice what persists. It ...
18 Jan 2026
Launching With Care
What does it mean to launch a publishing house with care? Launching With Care explores why Casa de María Publisher chose to enter the world not through a traditional ribbon cutting, but through a free public program grounded in dialogue, accountability, and community presence. This conversation examines publishing as stewardship rather than spectacle, and accessibility as an ethical stance rather than a marketing decision. It invites listeners to consider how stories are held while they are s...
9 Jan 2026
Episode 3: Voice, Craft, and Cultural Integrity
In this episode of Casa de María, Dr. Vilma Luz Cabán reflects on what it truly means to develop an authentic voice as a writer—one rooted in lived experience, cultural memory, and ethical care. Building on the previous conversation about writing as witness, this episode explores how truth is carried onto the page without being flattened, translated, or shaped to meet external expectations. We examine voice not as performance or imitation, but as a relationship—to language, to memory, and to ...
7 Jan 2026
Episode 2: Writing as Witness and Healing
Writing is not only an act of craft. It is an act of presence, memory, and care. In this episode, Dr. Vilma Luz Cabán explores writing as a form of witness and a pathway toward healing. She reflects on how writing can honor lived experience without turning pain into performance or productivity, and how ethical storytelling begins with intention, consent, and respect for the writer’s inner pace. This conversation examines the difference between witness and exposure, the relationship between wr...
6 Jan 2026
Why Does Casa de María Exist?
Casa de María was not created as a business alone. It was born from memory, promise, and an unwavering belief in the power of story. In this opening episode, Dr. Vilma Luz Cabán shares the origin of Casa de María Publisher. She reflects on the personal, cultural, and ethical foundations that shaped its creation, from honoring ancestral legacy and lived experience to building a publishing home rooted in dignity, care, and creative sovereignty. This episode explores why Casa de María exists as ...
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