Vote online for Tía Chucha’s “Arts Transforms Community” project…your vote could mean $100,000 in funding

How would you use $100,000 to shape the future of Los Angeles? And how could $100,000 help Tía Chucha’s “Arts Transforms Community” project become a reality?

Spearheaded by the Goldhirsh Foundation, the LA2050 campaign invited the Los Angeles community to dream of the most innovative and creative ways to tackle our city’s biggest problems. With $1,000,000 in total grants, organizations have submitted applications for a chance at $100,000 to make their ideas a reality in 2013.

Here’s how you can help: Luis J. Rodríguez (pictured above with his wife Trini) has submitted a proposal on behalf of Tía Chucha’s Centro Cultural & Bookstore which reads, in part:

Poor communities are usually portrayed as fonts of violence, stagnant thinking and deficit outcomes. But we at Tía Chucha’s Centro Cultural see the poor as rich with talents, skills and imaginations. Every person, even without outside resources, is by nature regenerative. The concept behind arts-based healing workshops is to tap into and draw out this abundant capacity to establish healthy lives, families, and culture – even in a faltering economy. A new currency of restoring and transforming from one's own gifts opens up a new imagination of how to relate by giving and getting, with healing practices and disciplines. This is about renewing community rooted in caring and sharing.

If, after reading the entire proposal, you wish to show your support, please click on the “Vote” button. Don’t delay! The deadline for voting is this Wednesday, April 17, at noon Pacific Daylight Time. VOTE HERE.

IN OTHER NEWS…

◙ The Los Angeles Times Festival of Books will be celebrated at the USC campus on April 20 and 21. You may find all relevant information (panels, ticketing, parking, directions, etc.) by going here. Here are some festival events that La Bloga readers might be interested in:

• On Saturday, April 20, Tía Chucha’s Centro Cultural will participate in Kaya Press’s Smokin’ Hot Lit Lounge (Booth 380), from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. where you may meet authors and purchase books. From 11:00 to 11:30 a.m., enjoy “READINGS FROM TÍA CHUCHA & FRIENDS featuring LUIS RODRÍGUEZ and DANIEL A. OLIVAS.”

• The Festival of Books has a wonderful line-up of authors the entire weekend. I have my tickets to a few events on Saturday, including this panel discussion: “Writing American Identity” (Conversation 1134, 3:30 p.m.), with Reyna Grande, Melinda Palacio, Luis J. Rodríguez and David Treuer, moderated by Hèctor Tobar.

• Check the Festival of Books' schedule for other Lantin@ authors who will be participating. The line-up includes such great writers as Alex Espinoza, Sherry Velasco, Gustavo Arellano, Pilar Marrero, Steve Lopez and more!

◙ My interview with Melinda Palacio regarding her new poetry collection, How Fire Is a Story, Waiting (Tía Chucha Press), appears in the Los Angeles Review of Books. I note, in part, that her collection “is a mature and deeply stirring work, one that explores Melinda Palacio’s identity as a Latina, daughter, and writer in language that is as lyrical as it is candid.”

◙ Desperado: A Mile High Noir (Arte Público Press) by Manuel Ramos, earns a rave review in The Denver Post which calls it “a dark and gritty novel set in Denver’s North Side that could have been written only by someone who's been there.” 

◙ Oh, I’m on Twitter now…become one of my followers @olivasdan. I will happily Tweet your literary news.