Elizabeth DiAlto is the founder of the School of Sacred Embodiment and host of the “Embodied With Elizabeth DiAlto” and “Mystical Aunties” podcasts, the latter launching later this year. A relative newcomer to Miami, she joined the Friends of the Fair family last year.
I’m so excited to do this – I love Miami Book Fair!
That’s good, because otherwise this interview wouldn’t go too well. [both laugh]
How did you first learn about the Fair?
In 2022 my favorite book of the year was Olga Dies Dreaming by Xochitl Gonzalez, which I found on a bookshelf in an Airbnb when I was in Vieques, in Puerto Rico. My abuelita’s name is Olga so I was like, oh, what is this? Then I started following Gonzalez on Instagram and she posted that she was going to be at the Fair and I said, “What’s Miami Book Fair? I’m going!” [laughs]
Why did you decide to become a Friend?
I just loved the Fair so much when I came. Why wouldn’t I want to contribute and get the inside scoop and tickets and stuff to these events? I love books! The two greatest freedoms in my life, I distinctly remember, are when I learned how to read and when I got my driver’s license. So when I went to the Fair I just felt like, this is amazing – I want to do everything here!
Being a Friend brings you benefits at the actual Fair as well as year-round –
One thousand percent! I’m never going to be the person who’s on top of what new books are coming out, and being involved in Book Fair – getting the emails, getting the invites – I’ve learned about so many incredible authors and books.
How did you experience Book Fair last year? Did you go with friends or fly solo?
It’s funny, because I invited all these people who said they were excited to go and they all fell through. So I was just going to go by myself, but then the first panel I walked into – the one with Elizabeth Acevedo, Esmeralda Santiago, and Anjanette Delgado – I bumped into two of my friends and we ended up spending the day together.
Of all the sessions you attended last year, which one really stands out for you?
It was that panel. I was reading Esmeralda Santiago’s Las Madres in preparation for seeing her at the Fair, and that book! It was just so moving. I loved it so much; it was so poignant.
What are you into now?
You know what? This is hilarious and I’m not going to omit it, I’m just going to tell you: I like the show Bridgerton so I started reading those damn books.
No shame here. I love those books.
The Kate and Anthony story is my favorite season and it’s my favorite book in the series. It’s so embarrassing! [laughs]
Name a book you think every kid should read.
To Kill a Mockingbird. I read it when I was young, in the fifth grade – my teacher had a copy and I had to get permission from my mother to read it – and I remember, at 10 years old, crying as I read the book and thinking, Atticus Finch knows what’s up. This sh-t is wrong. And it really activated something in myself, an awareness or sense of knowing about justice and liberation.
You’re going on a monthlong sabbatical where it’s just you and your thoughts – what three books are going with you?
The Young Lords by Johanna Fernández, about the Puerto Rican radical group. I didn’t know about them until I read Olga Dies Dreaming, and I was like, damn, we had our own Black Panthers? And then a friend of mine told me, “Oh, yeah – my brother Eddie was in the Young Lords.” I was like, what?! Puerto Ricans never tell you any of the good stuff. [laughs]
The second book I’d bring is Victim by Andrew Boryga. Xochitl Gonzalez recommended it. It’s about a dude from a family of hustlers who comes of age through that lens. He does go to college but he exaggerates his life story and uses that to get ahead.
And the last one might sound as if it’s coming out of left field but it’s not. A Book of Silence by Sara Maitland. A friend recommended it.
If MBF came to you and said, “Elizabeth, who do you most want to see at this year’s Fair?” who would that author be and what would you ask them in a one-on-one?
Junot Díaz. I’d ask him about one of his Substacks; it single-handedly helped me self-publish my first little novella.
Interview by Elisa Chemayne Agostinho; responses have been edited for space and clarity.
