Yssis Cano-Santiago wants more Latinx YA stories

BPL Writer-in-Residence centers her work on mental health in Latinx communities

In Yssis Cano-Santiago’s forthcoming young adult fiction novel, “A Hypochondriac’s Guide to Love,” two Latinx teenagers wrestle with the challenges of growing up in 1990s Miami against the backdrop of gentrification and racism. Told from a dual perspective, the book follows the characters as they battle separate mental health conditions.

Infused in the protagonists’ stories is a little bit of Cano-Santiago’s own experiences as a Latina dealing with illness anxiety disorder, or hypochondria. 

“It was really important for me to have that topic in my novel about mental illness, especially a mental illness I don’t hear a lot about,” she told the Banner in an interview. “It was really important for me to see more of that in literature,” the 23-year-old added.

Over the next year, Cano-Santiago will work toward telling that story, spending her time refining her manuscript as the 2024-2025 writer-in-residence for the Associates of the Boston Public Library, an independent nonprofit.

The program typically selects one emerging writer who writes for children or young adults and provides them with a launching pad for their career, said Vidisha Agarwalla, communications specialist for the Associates of the Boston Public Library, in an email to the Banner.

Amid a record-breaking pool of some 200 applications this time around, Cano-Santiago’s stood out.

Yssis Cano-Santiago, 23, the 2024-25 Associates of the Boston Public Library Writer-in-Residence. PHOTO: VIDISHA AGARWALLA FOR THE ASSOCIATES OF THE BOSTON PUBLIC LIBRARY

“The judges look for stories that bring something fresh and new to the existing literature for young people, strength of writing craft, and a project that both is likely to get published and could benefit from the support of the fellowship in order to get there,” Agarwalla said of the selection process.

As part of the commitment, writers-in-residence receive a stipend that allows them to spend a required minimum of 19 hours weekly working on their literary projects at the main branch of Boston Public Library for a year.

Cano-Santiago will be at the Welcome Reception and 20th Anniversary Celebration at the Boston Public Library on Oct. 1, her official start date. When she begins her stint, she will join a group of over 20 authors who, beginning in 2004, applied for the program and completed it.

Cano-Santiago has been writing for as long as she can remember. She recalled writing on construction paper as a young girl and stapling the pages together to assemble a storybook she would then sell to her family. Encouraged by the love of books her mother instilled in her, Cano-Santiago began reading.

But, in the books she picked up, she noticed something odd. White characters were the default, something she grew to learn was also the case in other forms of media.

“And I didn’t really think anything was wrong with that until I got a little older, and then I was like, ‘Why am I not seeing people who look like me or people with similar backgrounds as me in the books that I’m reading?’” she said.

In her writing, she wants to focus on telling the stories of Latinx characters.

“It’s really important for me that in my future career and as I continue with writing that I pay homage to where I’m from,” she said.

Cano-Santiago, an Orlando, Florida native, is of Puerto Rican and Mexican heritage, two cultures she said are “arts-driven.” This is evident in her own family which is filled with creatives, including her mom, who wrote a lot of poetry when she was younger. So, it was “really natural for me to follow that path,” Cano-Santiago said.

Still, there were pragmatic considerations to make. Cano-Santiago said she understood the challenges of making a living off writing alone, so in college, she opted for a more “practical major,” choosing to study public health and foreign affairs at the University of Virginia. Now, post-graduation, she works as a paralegal for the Boston Public Health Commission.

Even as she pursued other interests, she said, she always found ways to put pen to paper. In college, she wrote opinion pieces for The Cavalier Daily, her school’s newspaper, and she recently secured a spot in a mentorship program at Las Musas Books for unpublished Latinx authors.

“The dream was always to be a writer full-time,” she said. “It’s still very much the dream.”

When Cano-Santiago rounds out her writer-in-residence year in September 2025, her completed manuscript will be added to the Boston Public Library’s Special Collections.