Authors, readers and publishing industry experts lament the underrepresentation of Hispanic stories in the mainstream world of books, but have found new ways to elevate the literature and resolve misunderstandings.

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“The stories now are more diverse than they were ten years ago,” said Carmen Alvarez, a book influencer on Instagram and TikTok.

Some publishers, independent bookstores and book influencers are pushing past the perception of monolithic experience by making Hispanic stories more visible and discoverable for book lovers.

The rise of online book retailers and limited marketing budgets for stories about people of color have been major hurdles for increasing that representation, despite annual celebrations of Hispanic Heritage Month from Sept. 15 to Oct. 15 in the U.S. There’s been a push for ethnically authentic stories about Latinos, beyond the immigrant experience.

“I feel like we are getting away from the immigration story, the struggle story,” said Alvarez, who is best known as “tomesandtextiles” on bookstagram and booktok, the Instagram and TikTok social media communities. “I feel like my content is to push back against the lack of representation.”

Latinos in the publishing industry

Latinos currently make up roughly 20% of the U.S. population, according to Census data.

However, the National Hispanic Media Coalition estimates Latinos only represent 8% of employees in publishing, according to its Latino Representation in Publishing Coalition created in 2023.

Book are on display at Palabras Bilingual Bookstore Monday, Oct. 6, 2025, in Phoenix. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)

Brenda Castillo, NHMC president and CEO, said the coalition works directly with publishing houses to highlight Latino voices and promote their existing Latino employees.

The publishing houses “are the ones that have the power to make the changes,” Castillo said.

Some Hispanic authors are creating spaces for their work to find interested readers. Award-winning children authors Mayra Cuevas and Alex Villasante co-founded a book festival and storytellers conference in 2024 to showcase writers and illustrators from their communities.

“We were very intentional in creating programming around upleveling craft and professional development,” Cuevas said. “And giving attendees access to the publishing industry, and most importantly, creating a space for community connection and belonging.”

Villasante said the festival and conference allowed them to sustain themselves within the publishing industry, while giving others a road map for success in an industry that isn’t always looking to mass produce their work.

“We are not getting the representation of ourselves,” Villasante said. “I believe that is changing, but it is a slow change so we have to continue to push for that change.”

Breaking into the mainstream

New York Times bestselling author Silvia Moreno-Garcia, a Mexican-Canadian novelist known for the novels “Mexican Gothic” and “The Daughter of Doctor Moreau,” is one of few Hispanic authors that has been able to break to mainstream. But she said it wasn’t easy.

A free books trolley sits in front of Palabras Bilingual Bookstore, Monday, Oct. 6, 2025, in Phoenix. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)

Moreno-Garcia recalled one of her first publisher rejections: The editor complimented the quality of the story but said it would not sell because it was set in Mexico.

“There are systems built within publishing that make it very difficult to achieve the regular distributions that other books naturally have built into them,” Moreno-Garcia said. “There is sometimes resistance to sharing some of these books.”

Cynthia Pelayo, an award-winning author and poet, said the marketing campaign is often the difference maker in terms of a book’s success. Authors of color are often left wanting more promotional support from their publishers, she said.

“I’ve seen exceptional Latino novels that have not received nearly the amount of marketing, publicity that some of their white colleagues have received,” Pelayo said. “What happens in that situation (is) their books get put somewhere else in the bookstore when these white colleagues, their books will get put in the front.”

Hispanic Heritage Month, however, helps bring some attention to Hispanic authors, she added.

Independent bookstores

Independent bookstores remain persistent in elevating Hispanic stories. A 2024 report by the American Booksellers Association found that 60 of the 323 new independent bookstores were owned by people of color. According to Latinx in Publishing, a network of publishing industry professionals, there are 46 Hispanic-owned bookstores in the U.S.

The back reading room of Palabras Bilingual Bookstore is seen Monday, Oct. 6, 2025, in Phoenix. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)

Online book retailer Bookshop.org has highlighted Hispanic books and provided discounts for readers during Hispanic Heritage Month. A representative for the site, Ellington McKenzie, said the site has been able to provide financial support for about 70 Latino bookstores.

“People are always looking to support those minority owned bookstores which we are happy to be the liaison between them,” McKenzie said.

Chawa Magaña, the owner of Palabras Bilingual Bookstore in Phoenix, said she was inspired to open the store because of what she felt was a lack of diversity and representation in the books that are taught in Arizona schools.

The main entrance of Palabras Bilingual Bookstore shows off colorful artwork, a theme throughout the bookstore, Monday, Oct. 6, 2025, in Phoenix. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)

“Growing up, I didn’t experience a lot of diversity in literature in schools.” Magaña said. “I wasn’t seeing myself in the stories that I was reading.”

Of the books for sale at Palabras Bilingual, between 30% to 40% of the books are Latino stories, she said.

Magaña said having heard people say they have never seen that much representation in a bookstore has made her cry.

“What has been the most fulfilling to me is able to see how it impacts other people’s lives,” she said. “What motivates me is seeing other people get inspired to do things, seeing people moved when they see the store itself having diverse books.”

By MUNIR AHMED, Associated Press

ISLAMABAD (AP) — Pakistan and Afghanistan on Wednesday announced a ceasefire following days of the deadliest clashes in years that killed dozens of people on both sides of the border.

The pause came after appeals from major regional powers, including Saudi Arabia and Qatar, as the violence threatened to further destabilize a region where groups, including the Islamic State group and al-Qaida, are trying to resurface.

Pakistan accuses Afghanistan of harboring armed groups, a charge rejected by the country’s Taliban rulers. Pakistan is grappling with militant attacks that have increased since 2021, when the Taliban seized power in Afghanistan.

Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry described the ceasefire as a 48-hour one and said the ceasefire was at Afghanistan’s request. Key border crossings remained closed.

Moments later, the Taliban government’s chief spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, said the truce was at the “insistence” of the Pakistani side. His social media post did not mention a 48-hour time frame.

Earlier Wednesday, Pakistan said its troops killed dozens of Afghan security forces and militants in overnight fighting.

Humanitarian group Emergency NGO, which runs a surgical center in the Afghan capital of Kabul, said it received five dead and 40 wounded following explosions in the capital.

Dejan Panic, Emergency NGO’s country director in Afghanistan, said the victims had “shrapnel wounds, blunt force trauma and burns.” In a statement, he said 10 were in critical condition.

It was unclear what caused the blasts. There was an oil tanker explosion, confirmed by the Taliban. And two Pakistani security officials said their army had hit militant hideouts. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak with the media.

This map shows several provinces and cities along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border that have been impacted by recent clashes between the two countries. (AP Digital Embed)

Mujahid, the Taliban spokesman, earlier said that Pakistani forces used light and heavy weapons in assaults on Spin Boldak in southern Kandahar province, with more than a dozen people killed and over 100 wounded. Afghan forces returned fire and killed several Pakistani soldiers, Mujahid said.

Pakistan maintains it has repelled “unprovoked” assaults, but denies targeting civilians during the fighting.

Meanwhile, people in the Pakistani border town of Chaman reported mortars falling near villages.

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“People who live close to the border are leaving the area,” said resident Najibullah Khan, who urged the countries to end the fighting for good.

Pakistan’s border regions have experienced violence since 1979, when it became a frontline state in the U.S.-backed war against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan.

“After the Sept. 11 attacks, Pakistan’s tribal belt descended into chaos as the Afghan Taliban, al-Qaida and other groups operated from both sides of the border for attacks on NATO forces and Pakistani security forces,” said Abdullah Khan, a defense analyst and managing director of the Pakistan Institute for Conflict and Security Studies.

Associated Press writers Abdul Qahar Afghan in Jalalabad, Afghanistan, Riaz Khan in Peshawar, Pakistan, and Abdul Sattar in Quetta, Pakistan, contributed to this report.

By TOM MURPHY, AP Health Writer

CVS has finished buying customer prescription files from hundreds of closed Rite Aid drugstores and is now running 63 of the defunct chain’s locations.

The company said Wednesday that it is operating former Rite Aid and Bartell Drugs stores in Idaho, Oregon and Washington. It also has transferred customer prescription files from 626 pharmacies in 15 states to nearby CVS locations.

CVS Health did not say how much it spent on the stores and prescription files.

Rite Aid recently announced on its website that its stores have closed. The company said in May that it was seeking bankruptcy protection and would look to sell substantially all of its assets.

Philadelphia-based Rite Aid once ran more than 4,000 stores mostly on the East Coast. It initially filed for bankruptcy protection in October 2023 after struggling with debt and posting annual losses for several years.

The chain emerged from that Chapter 11 reorganization in 2024 as a private company. It said then that it had less debt, was more efficient and now operated a “rightsized store footprint.”

But the recovery didn’t stick with Rite Aid down to around 1,200 stores. The chain was attempting to turn around its business in a tough environment.

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Major chains and independent pharmacies have been closing stores and struggling with challenges like increased theft and customers who are drifting more to online shopping and discount retailers.

Walgreens, which has more than six times as many stores as Rite Aid, agreed in March to be acquired by the private equity firm Sycamore Partners.

Woonsocket, Rhode Island-based CVS Health Corp. runs several thousand drugstores. It also operates a large pharmacy benefits management business, and its Aetna health insurance segment covers nearly 27 million people.

Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve was highly critical of the officiating staff in Minnesota’s Game 3 loss to Phoenix in the WNBA semifinals last month.

One of those referees was named an NBA staff official for the 2025-26 campaign.

Jenna Reneau, who was listed as the third official from the Lynx game Reeve was ejected from after storming onto the court following a late no-call that left Napheesa Collier injured, was one of three new hires the NBA announced Wednesday.

Per the NBA’s release, Reneau has worked 30 NBA regular season games as a non-staff official over the course of the last four seasons. She’s officiated nine years in the G-League, working each of the last three G-League Finals, has worked each of the last four WNBA postseasons and referred men’s and women’s games in the 2024 Paris Olympics.

Following the Game 3 defeat, Reeve went to the postgame podium and lamented the lack of calls for Collier and what, in her mind, was excessive physicality. She also called for “a change of leadership at the league level when it comes to officiating. It’s bad for the game.”

“The officiating crew that we had tonight, for the leadership to deem those three people semifinals playoff worthy is (expletive) malpractice,” Reeve added.

Reneau called that game alongside officials Isaac Barnett and Randy Richardson.

Reeve was subsequently suspended for Game 4 of the series — in which the Lynx were eliminated — for her comments.

“We are very pleased to welcome Biniam, Pat and Jenna to our NBA officiating staff,” NBA Executive Vice President, head of referee operations Albert Sanders said in the release. “Each official has consistently demonstrated the growth, professionalism, and performance quality to officiate NBA games on a regular basis.”