About
Jess Palacios is a poet based in Orange County, California, who was born and raised in Manaus, the largest city in the Brazilian Amazon. In April 2026 she published her first book, These Fiery Hearts, a collection of lyric and prose poems written over more than ten years. The poems move from her teenage years to the edge of adulthood, and they carry her own story from the Amazon to the quiet corners of growing up. The book is the work of one person writing her own life.
The collection gathers self-love, childhood dreams, the immigrant experience, grief, loss, romance and friendship into one debut. It speaks directly to young Latinas looking for language for ancestry and self-worth, drawn from a life lived across two countries. She writes as a Latina author of poetry and prose, and her own line for the book is plain: from the banks of the Amazon to the quiet corners of growing up, a life lived in color, chaos, tenderness and truth.
She is not only publishing the book. She is reading it out loud. Since the April 28, 2026 release she has built a small in-person circuit across Orange County and greater Los Angeles: a launch reading, a library tie-in, and signings at independent and chain bookshops through the spring and into summer. Her first signing was at Barnes and Noble Brea on May 3, 2026, and she sold out her second. A poetry reading and signing at Arvida Book Co., a woman-owned indie shop in Old Town Tustin, is booked for July 11, 2026.
The book came out through Luminary Publishing House, a small independent press that distributes it and lists her events, while her own pages carry her identity. She runs an Instagram account she built first as a book reviewer, plus Threads and an author landing page. Her audience is the size of a growing reading room rather than a mass following, and the work in front of it is a physical book she spent a decade writing and now performs aloud in person.
Highlights
- Debut book
- These Fiery Hearts, released April 28, 2026, 116-page poetry collection
- Publisher
- Luminary Publishing House, a small independent press
- Origin
- Born and raised in Manaus, the Brazilian Amazon; based in Orange County, California
- Reading circuit
- Barnes and Noble Brea, a Santa Ana library, and Arvida Book Co. in Tustin on July 11, 2026
- Written over
- More than a decade, from teenage years to the edge of adulthood
Deeper Dive
The origin is literal, not decorative. The Amazon in the blurb is the Brazilian Amazon, the city of Manaus, where she was born and raised before her life moved to California. That double location is the engine of the work: poems about the immigrant experience written by someone who lived the crossing, addressed to readers carrying ancestry of their own. The collection runs 116 pages and was written across more than a decade, so the book reads as a long private record made public rather than a quick first draft.
She came to poetry through a reading community, not an academic one. For years she ran a book account reviewing romantasy and paranormal and gothic fiction, building a following one recommendation at a time. These Fiery Hearts is the turn from reviewing other people's books to publishing her own, and her bio now reads latina author of poetry and prose. That path shows in the launch: she knows how to gather an audience online, and she is now pointing that audience at her own work and at rooms where she reads it in person.
The distribution is hands-on and local. The book sits on Amazon and Target and in independent shops, but the real engine is the signing circuit: Barnes and Noble Brea, a Santa Ana library tie-in, and the Tustin reading in July. She set a public goal of selling 1,000 copies during indie-press month. Selling out a second signing in the first weeks suggests the in-person model is doing more for the book than the algorithm, which is unusual for a debut poet and points to a real, present readership rather than a passive online one.
She has stayed active through the launch and past it. Through late May 2026 she was still posting new poem excerpts, lines like Show me what you made of, the wounds no one sees, and pointing followers to a pinned list of upcoming events. The footprint is modest against the ambition: a first-time poet on a small press, selling out small rooms and booking the next one, building a reading community in Orange County one signing at a time.
In Their Words
“From the banks of the Amazon to the quiet corners of growing up, this debut poetry collection gathers the pieces of a life lived in color, chaos, tenderness, and truth.”
