Meet Zyanya Puche Aguilar

We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Zyanya Puche Aguilar a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Zyanya , really appreciate you opening up about a very personal topic with the hopes that it can help someone out there who might be going through it. What can you share with us about your journey with postpartum depression and how you overcame PPD? For readers, please note this is not medical advice, we are not doctors, you should always consult professionals for advice and that this is merely one person sharing their story and experience.

Writing I Love You More Than Cupcakes, Te Amo Más Que Cupcakes was deeply healing for me during my postpartum journey. As a first-time mom, I was faced with a kind of hardship I had never experienced before. The exhaustion, the identity shift, and the waves of difficult emotions felt overwhelming in that season of life. At the same time, I had just made the huge decision to step away from my career as a Spanish teacher to become a full-time mom. This shift was both rewarding and disorienting as a career in some form of youth development has been a huge part of my identity. Creating this book gave me an outlet to reconnect with myself outside of motherhood. It allowed me to pour my love for my daughter and my family into something tangible and joyful. It helped me rediscover parts of myself that felt lost. Writing this book helped me find a way to keep teaching, to keep sharing my Spanish and my culture in a meaningful and lasting way, while also nurturing my creative side. This balance reminded me that while motherhood is a central part of who I am, I can also continue to grow, create, and celebrate the things I love.

Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?

I’m the author of I Love You More Than Cupcakes, Te Amo Más Que Cupcakes, a bilingual children’s book that blends culture and language in a playful way. It’s designed to be the perfect bedtime or anytime story! I think what makes it especially unique is that the rhymes are true translations in both English and Spanish while still rhyming in each language. That balance was tricky to achieve but it was important to me that no language took precedence over the other. I have found that often times, when dealing with a bilingual book, one language either changes the message entirely or has to make sacrifices in some way in order to rhyme. In this book I was able to say exactly the same thing and make it rhyme in each language. I am quite proud of that.

Beyond the book itself, I’ve also created a collection of free literacy and math activities to accompany the story. These activities are made for pre-K and kindergarten levels. These resources are available through my Instagram profile for families, teachers, or anyone who wants to extend the learning. I also love connecting with the community through in-person events. I offer literacy nights, meet-the-author experiences, and story times for schools, libraries, mom groups, or even private parties! My hope is to create meaningful opportunities for children to learn, connect, and celebrate both language and culture in fun, engaging ways.

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?

Looking back, I’d say the three most impactful parts of my journey in self-publishing I Love You More Than Cupcakes, Te Amo Más Que Cupcakes were finding the right printer, learning how to share my book with the world, and trusting my own creative instincts. Choosing to self-publish meant I had to go through a detailed process of researching and testing to make sure the printer I chose could bring my vision to life with the quality I wanted. Once the book was made, the next challenge was getting it out there. Figuring out how to connect with the right audience, sharing it with families and schools, and creating opportunities to read it aloud and highlight the free resources I built to go along with it. Lastly, one of the biggest lessons was learning to trust my artistic and creative skills. Like many artists, I felt the pull to keep tweaking and changing things, but I had to remind myself that my art was worthy and that sharing it in its authentic form mattered more than chasing perfection. My advice for others early in their journey is: do your homework when it comes to the production side, don’t be afraid to put yourself out there and actively share your work, and most importantly, believe in your voice and your vision because that trust is what carries your art forward.

One of our goals is to help like-minded folks with similar goals connect and so before we go we want to ask if you are looking to partner or collab with others – and if so, what would make the ideal collaborator or partner?

Yes, I would absolutely love to collaborate! I’m especially interested in partnering with teachers who want to develop additional curriculum around my book, as well as libraries or schools that are excited about hosting literacy nights or author events. I’d also love to connect with businesses that serve children and families to create fun, engaging ways to celebrate this story, bilingual learning, and early education. If this sounds like you, or if you have another idea for collaboration, you can reach me on Instagram at @zyanyaan or @nelliebearstudios, or by email at [email protected].

Contact Info:

• Website: https://linktr.ee/NellieBearStudios
• Instagram: @NellieBearStudios
• Other: https://www.etsy.com/shop/NellieBearStudios