Meet the Readers: Cynthia Pelayo

Cynthia Pelayo is a Bram Stoker Award winning and International Latino Book Award-winning author and poet. She is the author of Loteria, Children of Chicago, The Shoemaker’s Magician, Forgotten Sisters, It Came From Neverland, as well as dozens of standalone short stories and poems. She was named one of Chicago’s Lit50 by NewCity in 2025. Her upcoming work is Something Followed Us Home: Tales of Latiné Horror, an anthology she edited for Atria which includes some of today’s leading Latin American authors.  

Please join Cynthia and our other incredible readers on Tuesday, Aug. 4, 2026 in the upstairs bar at Hopleaf. Doors open at 7pm, and the show starts at 7:30. It's free, and 21-and-over. Please RSVP on Facebook.