Tía Chucha Press and Kaya Press join forces at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books...and other close encounters with wonderful writers, presses and readers

Tía Chucha Press's table with Trini Rodriguez 

On Saturday, I had the pleasure of joining Luis Rodriguez for a joint reading at the Kaya Press booth at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books. Kaya Press, Tía Chucha Press and other wonderful independent presses and literary journals joined forces at the Smokin’ Hot Lit Lounge to bring two days of readings, workshops and game playing on the sunny USC campus.

Luis Rodriguez reading poetry 

Luis began with a rousing reading of several of his poems. If you haven’t heard him perform his poetry before, you must make certain to do so soon. After Luis, I read a few flash fiction pieces from one of my short-story collections, Devil Talk (Bilingual Press).

Daniel Olivas reading from Devil Talk 

And here are a few photos of readers, writers, editors and publishers having fun with Kaya Press and Tía Chucha Press, et al.:

Helen, Michele, Tina and Barney after reading 

 

Sunyoung Lee, publisher of Kaya Press, being silly! 

Kaya Press competitive Scrabble contest 

 

Kaya Press book offerings 

I also had a chance to visit a couple of panel discussions including “Nonfiction: A Singular Passion” which included bestselling authors Gustavo Arellano and Ricardo Cortés.

Gustavo Arellano, Daniel Olivas and Ricardo Cortés

Late in the afternoon, I caught “Writing American Identity” moderated by Héctor Tobar with panelists Reyna Grande, David Treuer, Luis Rodriguez and Melinda Palacio. Michael Sedano (not pictured) prowled the room with his omnipresent camera.

David Treuer, Luis Rodriguez, Melinda Palacio, Reyna Grande and Héctor Tobar

Kudos to all of the Latin@ authors and presses (including Cinco Puntos Press shown below) who shared their great literature at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books!

Lee Merrill Byrd of Cinco Puntos Press