Saints on Columbus

Unburied secrets from 1492 haunt the world of a Nuyorican preteen on a quest to reinvent home and rewrite history. 

Prof. Konje’s and Prof. De Herbert’s mystical Dream Books offer purchasers the promise of a rich paradise through three-number combinations. Grandma swears by these books, even though they were written for the numbers game of the early twentieth century, and even though she’s yet to hit the coveted jackpot that will deliver her family from life on the Avenue, which she curses for its drug lure. Life changes, though, when a séance leaves her with an uninvited mysterious pirate squatter. He has an insatiable appetite for Goya seasonings and her—romancing Grandma with every conceivable Sinatra vinyl in Fantasy Island settings that are both dreamy and horrific.

Forget Ghostbusters—cue Nova, Grandma’s quixotic preteen granddaughter with a Goonies-like love for the wormhole-plagued neighborhood Grandma abhors. Nova’s come up with a plan that will take care of everything: the Blackbeard wannabe, getting into a smarty-pants high school (then college), and landing some serious New York City real estate. After all, Nova’s a Marvel Comics mutant. She's also the Rigelian Recorder 212, an extraterrestrial robot who records Earth’s mightiest events. Plus, her old neighbor is schooling her in uncensored stories of life in the sixteenth-century Caribbean, and her best friend Marisol has ties to the Puerto Rico independence movement. So: Nova’s got this. The Dream Books offer something of their own to her: Konje’s Relativity, a new law of (mystical) physics. That’s all good news. Because the ghost of 1492 has some rather high demands on what Nova cherishes most: her neighborhood—commanding a family past, and a three-number combo that even Grandma never bet on.

Conspiracies, historical truth bombs, coming-of-age angst—Saints on Columbus is comic book realism performed as a Bad Bunny halftime show, by a riotous girl of the Goonies generation.

Publishing Oct 12, 2027 (Janus Point Press)

COVER REVEAL Spring 2027

Publisher’s Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Pitsirilos, Stephanie Nina, author.Title: Saints on Columbus : a novel / Stephanie Nina Pitsirilos.Description: New York, NY: Janus Point Press, 2027.Identifiers: LCCN: 2026923157 | ISBN: 978-1-958077-14-6 (hardcover) | 978-1-958077-16-0 (paperback) | 978-1-958077-15-3 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH Puerto Ricans--New York (State)--New York--Fiction. | Comic books, strips, etc.--Fiction. | Columbus, Christopher--Fiction. | Family--Fiction. | Coming of age--Fiction. | BISAC FICTION / Literary | FICTION / Hispanic & Latino / Magical Realism | FICTION / Historical / General
Classification: LCC PS3616 .I87 S35 2027 | DDC 813.6--dc23

Hardcover 978-1-958077-14-6

Ebook (epub) 978-1-958077-15-3

Paperback 978-1-958077-16-0

STEPHANIE NINA PITSIRILOS is a critically acclaimed prose and comics writer who rides the genre “comic book realism.” She is the recipient of the 2022 Chautauqua Janus Prize for “Jean”—Saints on Columbus in short-story form—called “masterful” by Publishers Weekly. Her debut novel, To Love Like Venus, was a 2026 Kirkus Prize nominee. Stephanie’s work spans novels, collections, zines, and artists’ books, always bending space-time. Event Horizon: Stories of No Turning Back is her sensual sci-fi/literary collection of these multi-medium worlds. Stephanie is a Manhattanite of Nuyorico born and raised on the Upper West Side, with a heart that sails the Aegean Sea.

Start by traveling through some musical wormholes to set the mood (and map out the journey): Spotify Playlist

(publishes every few months)