In discussing her genre-bending short story collection, The Rock Eaters, which features Latina girlhood alongside wondrous magic, future tech, and the politics of today, Brenda Peynado explores literature’s power to show us how to love. Separated by boundaries literal and figurative, her characters need for connection lays bare how even good intentions and the truth can be walls that divide us. To find their way back to one another, they will struggle against society and the mysteries of their own hearts. Lighting a path for readers to examine our complex moment in history, these characters show the need to reclaim wonder and find empathy, preparing us for the futures and paths to each other that were always within our reach.