Monday, February 09, 2009

¡Latinos in Lotusland in Chicago!

The 2009 AWP Annual Conference & Bookfair will be held on February 11-14 in Chicago at the Hilton Chicago, 720 South Michigan Avenue. I will be moderating a panel on Latinos in Lotusland: An Anthology of Contemporary Southern California Literature (Bilingual Press). As you might know, I'm lucky to be the editor of this landmark anthology which brings together 60 years of Los Angeles fiction by 34 Latino/a writers. The panel will be Manuel Muñoz, Kathleen Alcalá, Michael Jaime-Becerra and Estella González. The panel will be held in Continental C, Lobby Level, Saturday, February 14, 3:00 to 4:15 p.m. For a complete schedule, go here. For more information on the conference including registration, go here. Peruse the schedule to see other wonderful speakers such as Luis Alberto Urrea, Rigoberto González, and many others. I haven't had a chance to examine the full conference schedule, so if you know of any particular event that you'd like us to know about, post a comment below.

And if that weren't enough, PALABRA PURA is sponsoring an offsite special event on Friday, February 13, 6:00 to 7:30 p.m. at the JAZZ SHOWCASE, 806 S. Plymouth Ct., Chicago. The cost: Free! But bring cash for bar drinks. EVENT DESCRIPTION: Following up on the multi-voiced reading hosted by ACENTOS in NYC last year during AWP, the Guild Complex, Letras Latinas, and Poetry Magazine will be hosting a "One Poem Festival" featuring an ample roster of Latino and Latina poets from Chicago and out of town, including: Lisa Alvarado, Carlos Cumpian, Silvia Curbelo, Gina Franco, Gabe Gomez, Irasema Gonzalez, Maurice Kilwein Guevara, Gabriela Jauregui, Olivia Maciel, Carl Marcum, Valerie Martínez, Orlando Ricardo Menes, Achy Obejas, Daniel A. Olivas, Johanny Vasquez Paz, Paul Martinez Pompa, Linda Rodríguez, Jacob Saenz, Jorge Sánchez,Juan Manuel Sanchez Rich Villar. For more information, contact Ellen Wadey at ellenw@guildcomplex.org. You may also visit the Jazz Showcase website at http://www.jazzshowcase.com/, or the Guild Complex at guildcomplex.org. For a complete list of offsite events for the 2009 AWP Conference, go here.

2 comments:

Esaúl said...

I thought your readers would be interested in this:

National Endowment for the Arts and City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs
Partner for Guadalajara International Book Fair
Los Angeles invited to be 2009 Guest of Honor


Los Angeles, CA—The National Endowment for the Arts in partnership with the City of
Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs (DCA) announced today that Los Angeles, California has been invited to be the Guest of Honor at the 2009 International Book Fair
(Feria Internacional del Libro or FIL) in Guadalajara, Mexico. The announcement and signing ceremony with FIL officials took place this afternoon at El Pueblo de Los Angeles Historical Monument. Present at the announcement were Mayor of Los Angeles Antonio R. Villaraigosa, NEA Chairman Dana Gioia, President of the FIL Raúl Padilla, Director of the FIL Nubia Macías Navarro, and Executive Director of the Department of Cultural Affairs Olga Garay.

Each year since 1993, the FIL selects a Guest of Honor, either a country or region, to showcase its performing, visual, and literary artists for the more than a half a million people who attend the festival during its nine days of activities. The selection of Los Angeles represents the first time the FIL has invited a city to be the Guest of Honor. Artists from Los Angeles will be featured in more than 100 exhibitions, performances, films, readings, lectures, and symposia. The NEA has awarded $1.6 million to DCA to support artists’ fees, travel, and creation of the Guest of Honor exhibition space at the Expo Guadalajara, Expo Center where the majority of the Book Fair events take place. NEA will work closely with the Department to best manage the city’s presence at the festival which runs from November 28 to December 6, 2009.

Chairman Dana Gioia noted, “I congratulate Los Angeles for its invitation to be the honored city in 2009 at the prestigious Guadalajara International Book Fair. As a native Angeleno of Mexican descent, I am particularly proud of this extraordinary opportunity to strengthen the cultural ties between Mexico and the United States. In addition to its financial support, the NEA will leverage its experience in international cultural exchange to assist Los Angeles in showcasing its artists before a large international audience.”

“In naming a City as Guest of Honor for the first time, the Guadalajara International Book Fair honors and recognizes Los Angeles as a vibrant creative center for the arts,” Mayor Villaraigosa said. “For nine days in 2009, Los Angeles literature, film, dance, and theater will have a privileged place in the largest celebration of reading and learning in Latin America”.

Founded in 1987 by the University of Guadalajara, the Guadalajara International Book Fair is the largest market in the world for Spanish language publications. It features three main areas of activity: publishing, academic presentations, and cultural presentations. The publishing component is focused on the exhibit area where more than 1,600 publishing houses from 40 countries are represented. In addition, literary presentations, where attendees discuss issues such as translation, libraries, or children’s books, and approximately 300 book and author events will be part of the publishing component.

The academic presentations of the festival are developed by the University of Guadalajara working with that year’s Guest of Honor. Scholars gather to discuss important issues around education, literature, and society. The cultural component features music, theater, and dance performances each evening on the festival grounds and in venues around the city.

FIL President, Raul Padilla, remarked, "FIL Guadalajara is honored to host Los Angeles as the first city featured as the Guest of Honor. The diversity and astonishing force of the Angeleno culture will be, without any doubt, an extraordinary discovery for most visitors to the Book Fair. It will also be a chance to revisit and renew the cultural ties we share, and to establish a common ground for better understanding between our countries."

The 2008 guest of honor will be Italy. Past guests of honor have included Brazil (2001), Peru (2005), Andalusia (2006), and most recently, Colombia (2007).

On September 23, DCA will announce guidelines for the application and the review process for artists and arts organizations interested in presenting their work at specific FIL exhibition and performing arts venues. With funding from the NEA, DCA is seeking to support 12 to 25 visual and performing arts projects with grants ranging from $15,000 to $200,000. Selected projects will be emblematic of Los Angeles’ rich, multicultural communities and may consist of contemporary and/or traditional work. Additionally, a film program will be presented and up to 60 authors will participate in literary discussions and readings.

About the International Book Fair of Guadalajara
Founded 21 years ago by the University of Guadalajara, the Guadalajara International Book Fair is the largest Spanish publishing market in the world. Each year more than 17,000 book professionals, including publishers, literary agents, translators, librarians, reading advocates and distributors travel to Guadalajara for commercial and professional exchanges. With them half a million visitors from within Guadalajara and other Mexican cities come every year.

The 35,000 square meters of the exhibit hall contain more than 1,600 publishing houses from 40 countries. There are more than 90 activities per day; more than 300 book presentations take place during the Book Fair. In the cultural arena, the Book Fair has become an international reference, with a program offering a broad range of cultural expressions centered every year on the featured Guest of Honor.

The Book Fair has a $50 million dollar economic impact in the city and is visited every year by more than 100,000 young people. It hosts more than 1,600 journalists from 20 countries, being one of the more prominent cultural encounters on the continent.

Anonymous said...

Congrats on the AWP panel-- and so sorry to be missing AWP this year!