Wednesday, January 31, 2024

Premio Campoy-Ada 2024



Para más información visite  https://www.premiocampoy-ada.com/#

 

Los libros participantes tienen que haber sido publicados en 2024, 2023 y 2022. 

 

Respondiendo a su compromiso por defender y propiciar el uso del español en todas sus variantes auténticas y la difusión de literatura de calidad desde la infancia, la Academia Norteamericana de la Lengua Española (ANLE) y La Universidad de Texas, San Antonio (UTSA) han instituido este premio cuyo nombre honra a dos de sus miembros.

 

El objetivo de este premio es reconocer en el campo de la literatura infantil y juvenil, obras que destaquen por la originalidad de la su idea, su realización literaria y artística y por el uso excelente del lenguaje.

 

Podrán aspirar a las distintas categorías libros publicados en español, o en versión bilingüe que incluya el español, en los Estados Unidos o Puerto Rico, dentro de los tres años previos a la convocatoria.

 

 

CONDICIONES Y CRITERIOS PARA LA PRESENTACIÓN

 

CONDICIONES

 

1. Se otorgará un PRIMER PREMIO, y de considerarse apropiado al mérito de las obras participantes dos MENCIONES DE HONOR, en las siguientes categorías:

 

Libros de imágenes

Novelas infantiles

Novelas juveniles

Poesía infantil

Poesía juvenil

Biografía infantil

Biografía juvenil

Recuerdos autobiográficos

Teatro infantil

Teatro juvenil

Libros informativos de alta calidad literaria o artística

De no existir candidatos apropiados para cualquier categoría, esta se declarará desierta.

 

2. Los libros aspirantes al premio deben haber sido publicados en los Estados Unidos o Puerto Rico durante los tres años anteriores a la convocatoria. La fecha tope de presentación es el 31 de diciembre.

 

Si un libro ya ha recibido un primer premio o una mención de honor en un año precedente, no debe volver a ser sometido.

 

3. Los libros candidatos al premio Campoy-Ada deben haber sido publicados en español, en forma bilingüe o multilingüe, en la cual una de las lenguas es el español.

 

 

CRITERIOS PARA OTORGAR EL PREMIO

 

El mérito de los libros se juzgará según la relevancia de su contenido, la calidad literaria y artística y el uso excelente de la lengua.



Tuesday, January 30, 2024

Creating A New Normal, One Poetry Reading at a Time

Creating A New Normal, One Poetry Reading at a Time 
Michael Sedano

 Welcome to the new normal. Slowly, local arts awaken from a half decade of solitude behind closed windows and things that stopped being. Poetry readings and close-packed community gatherings disappeared, and with them the synergy that comes of poets and listeners in a live poetry gathering.

Toti O'Brien inaugurates resumption of Eagle Rock's Saturday poets' gathering.

The recent reading at Eagle Rock library, a branch of the Los Angeles city system, underscores the burgeoning new normal of poetry readings. 

Poets never stopped writing during the GOPlague-forced halt, and they hunger to read their work to audiences. Places never stopped being available to host readings. 


Nowadays, audiences wear, or don't wear, plague-phylactic face coverings. Audiences in distant locations virtually participate via telecommunications. In some instances, readers zoom their performance. In many cases, poets glue their eyes to a glowing screen and talk into their hand. More than ever before, Diversity matters because community matters.

The February second afternoon event, dubbed "Poetry Open Mic", resumes regular Saturday at 1 p.m. assemblies. The initial gathering post-plaguetime stoppage featured Toti O'Brien. The multitalented poet, sculptor, dancer, singer, "is known as the Italian Accordionist with the Irish Last Name. Toti is the author of Other Maidens (BlazeVOX, 2020), An Alphabet of Birds(Moonrise, 2020), In Her Terms (Cholla Needles, 2021), Pages of a Broken Diary (Pski’s Porch, 2022), The Past, Ineffable (Cholla Needles Press, 2023), Odd Arcana (Cholla Needles, 2023) and Alter Alter (Elyssar Press, 2024).

O'Brien reads expressively, freely allowing emotions forming inside her cerebral writing to flow out of her face and body into her rapt audience. There's no question of Toti O'Brien's musicality; at times her body dances the poem in time with the words.


American Sign Language translator Mona Jean Cedar recites with more than her full person. Her gestures, her hands, the position of her fingers speak expressions heard only by speakers of American Sign Language.

Cedar recites her own poem from memory, her body, arms, hands, face a single expressive element that creates a poem apart from yet because of the spoken word. For all the audience knows, gesture precedes verbal in this poet's work?

Audiences have a golden opportunity to ask themselves that when Mona Jean Cedar features at the next Eagle Rock "open mic" gathering. Watch La Bloga-Tuesday for details.


Hunger to speak, hunger to hear, hunger to be here with the local poetry scene were satified. Moderator Pat Cross at first announced seventeen sign-ups, then added a couple of late-arrivers and the "open mic" turned out to be 18  readers. An equal number attended to sit and enjoy. Some hollered and clapped for familiar poets not seen since before the GOPlague shut-down. Reunion and joy, two essential elements of community abound today.

Who knew there's an Eagle Rock poetry scene? How about your local community?

Moderator Pat Cross

Why shouldn't there be? Put out an open call, reserve free space in the local library, and open the doors on time.

Given that there's been a long time between readings, it's a good reminder to work with what happened, plan the next one. There will be a next time, the country is opening up. It's a new normal. 

Let the new part be how you read your stuff aloud, gente.

Poets and organizers benefit from writing down: three concrete elements that satisfied goals. Enumerate three concrete elements that will benefit from change, stuff not to do again, do more of, do less of. Next reading, you have a set of goals because you conducted a thorough post-joy analysis.

Foto Gallery

This gallery of Eagle Rock open mic poets challenges readers to remember two pointers: when there's a camera in the house, look into the lens now and then, and the rest of the reading, make eye contact, eye contact, and more eye contact.

Here's a La Bloga-Tuesday column dedicated to reading off a manuscript (link).









Monday, January 29, 2024

Encuentro Internacional de Culturas y Artes 2024 por Natasa Lambrou

 Encuentro Internacional de Culturas y Artes 2024 por Natasa Lambrou 


Desde hace cuatro años, tres promotores culturales de diferentes latitudes de este planeta, estamos soñando con reunir artistas en Cuba. El MSc. Eduardo Ingram vive en Las Tunas, Cuba, el Lic. Ernesto Pérez Ruiz reside en Italia y la Dra. Natasa Lambrou de Grecia, la que escribe, hemos querido organizar un evento artístico en el Municipio Jesús Menéndez para poder proyectar un amplio espectro cultural. Sin embargo estalló la pandemia de Covid-19 y dejamos este sueño atrás. Ahora es el momento de retomar el hilo y de cumplir lo pensado. Aquí les presentamos nuestra idea: Encuentro Internacional de Culturas y Artes en Las Tunas.

El Encuentro Internacional de Culturas y Artes 2024 se llevará a cabo en el Municipio Jesús Menéndez, Provincia de Las Tunas en Cuba.  Parte de los patrocinadores son la Dirección Municipal de Cultura, la Casa de la Cultura José de la Luz y Caballero. El 2024 será un año importante para la cultura local cubana de Las Tunas. Estaremos conmemorando en el mes de octubre, el primer cuarto de siglo del Concurso Tradicional de Creadores Musicales Charles Ingram in Memoriam, el más esperado y de mayor aceptación por parte de los pobladores.

Charles Ingram, un símbolo de la cultura en esta parte de la provincia de Las Tunas, al oriente de Cuba, nació en la hoy República de las Bahamas, el 10 de febrero de 1900. Fue fundador de agrupaciones musicales, promotor cultural, hombre sencillo y admirado por muchos lo que le permitió alcanzar la Máxima Distinción de la Cultura en Cuba. 

Los organizadores de la XXV Edición del Concurso Tradicional de Creadores Musicales Charles Ingram queremos hacer de este nuevo aniversario del Concurso una gran fiesta que reúna a amigos de diferentes latitudes que deseen compartir, intercambiar y mostrar sus valores culturales con nosotros. 

Los esperamos del 16 al 18 de octubre de 2024, fechas cómplices durante más de dos décadas de realización del concurso, en Chaparra, municipio costero, al norte de la provincia de Las Tunas, Cuba. Entre el 10 al 20 de octubre se llevará a cabo la propuesta de nuestro programa, el Encuentro Internacional de Culturas y Artes. Los interesados en participar deben de enviar un pequeño resumen detallando los siguientes datos:

 

Nombre y apellidos:

Nacionalidad:

Móvil:

Email:

Manifestación artística:

 

– Teatro:

– Música:

– Danza:

– Artes visuales:

– Literatura:

– Artes culinarias:

(Describa brevemente en qué consiste la actividad a presentar, puede estar acompañados de una muestra gráfica). 

El plazo para enviar la solicitud de participación es el 31 de enero de 2024.

El plazo para el envío de su resumen de lo que desea presentar es el 15 de febrero de 2024.

Los organizadores informarán de su aceptación de participación el 31 de mayo de 2024.

Para la recepción de las confirmaciones de participantes se ha creado el siguiente grupo Whatsapp (TÚ CULTURA CUENTA):

https://chat.whatsapp.com/CJKHNCCZ6vJDVCSqVr5Nwc 

Pueden enviar además sus resúmenes de solicitud de participante al siguiente e-mail: eduardoingramvinent@gmail.com

Número de móvil: +53 52457487.

 

Atentamente,

 

El equipo organizador de la XXV Edición del Concurso Tradicional de Creadores Musicales Charles Ingram in Memoriam.

 

 

Friday, January 26, 2024

Skimming the Edgar Nominations

 

The Mystery Writers of America recently announced the nominees for the 2024 Edgar Allan Poe Awards.  These awards honor the "best in mystery fiction, nonfiction and television published or produced in 2023." The awards cover several categories.  Here's a look at a few of the nominees in three of the categories.  The winners will be announced May 1, 2024.  
____________________





S.A. Cosby - Flatiron Books
[from the publisher]
Titus Crown is the first Black sheriff in the history of Charon County, Virginia. In recent decades, quiet Charon has had only two murders. But after years of working as an FBI agent, Titus knows better than anyone that while his hometown might seem like a land of moonshine, cornbread, and honeysuckle, secrets always fester under the surface.

Then a year to the day after Titus’s election, a school teacher is killed by a former student and the student is fatally shot by Titus’s deputies. As Titus investigates the shootings, he unearths terrible crimes and a serial killer who has been hiding in plain sight, haunting the dirt lanes and woodland clearings of Charon.

With the killer’s possible connections to a local church and the town’s harrowing history weighing on him, Titus projects confidence about closing the case while concealing a painful secret from his own past. At the same time, he also has to contend with a far-right group that wants to hold a parade in celebration of the town’s Confederate history.

Charon is Titus’s home and his heart. But where faith and violence meet, there will be a reckoning.

___________________


Colson Whitehead - Penguin
[from the publisher]
It’s 1971. Trash piles up on the streets, crime is at an all-time high, the city is careening towards bankruptcy, and a shooting war has broken out between the NYPD and the Black Liberation Army. Amidst this collective nervous breakdown furniture store owner and ex-fence Ray Carney tries to keep his head down and his business thriving. His days moving stolen goods around the city are over. It’s strictly the straight-and-narrow for him — until he needs Jackson 5 tickets for his daughter May and he decides to hit up his old police contact Munson, fixer extraordinaire. But Munson has his own favors to ask of Carney and staying out of the game gets a lot more complicated – and deadly.

1973. The counter-culture has created a new generation, the old ways are being overthrown, but there is one constant, Pepper, Carney’s endearingly violent partner in crime. It’s getting harder to put together a reliable crew for hijackings, heists, and assorted felonies, so Pepper takes on a side gig doing security on a Blaxploitation shoot in Harlem. He finds himself in a freaky world of Hollywood stars, up-and-coming comedians, and celebrity drug dealers, in addition to the usual cast of hustlers, mobsters, and hit men. These adversaries underestimate the seasoned crook – to their regret.

1976. Harlem is burning, block by block, while the whole country is gearing up for Bicentennial celebrations. Carney is trying to come up with a July 4th ad he can live with. (“Two Hundred Years of Getting Away with It!”), while his wife Elizabeth is campaigning for her childhood friend, the former assistant D.A and rising politician Alexander Oakes. When a fire severely injures one of Carney’s tenants, he enlists Pepper to look into who may be behind it. Our crooked duo have to battle their way through a crumbling metropolis run by the shady, the violent, and the utterly corrupted.

Crook Manifesto is a darkly funny tale of a city under siege, but also a sneakily searching portrait of the meaning of family. Colson Whitehead’s kaleidoscopic portrait of Harlem is sure to stand as one of the all-time great evocations of a place and a time.

__________________

BEST FIRST NOVEL BY AN AMERICAN AUTHOR



The Golden Gate
Amy Chua - Minotaur Books
[from the publisher]
In Berkeley, California, in 1944, Homicide Detective Al Sullivan has just left the swanky Claremont Hotel after a drink in the bar when a presidential candidate is assassinated in one of the rooms upstairs. A rich industrialist with enemies among the anarchist factions on the far left, Walter Wilkinson could have been targeted by any number of groups. But strangely, Sullivan’s investigation brings up the specter of another tragedy at the Claremont, ten years earlier: the death of seven-year-old Iris Stafford, a member of the Bainbridge family, one of the wealthiest in all of San Francisco. Some say she haunts the Claremont still.

The many threads of the case keep leading Sullivan back to the three remaining Bainbridge heiresses, now adults: Iris’s sister, Isabella, and her cousins Cassie and Nicole. Determined not to let anything distract him from the truth―not the powerful influence of Bainbridges’ grandmother, or the political aspirations of Berkeley’s district attorney, or the interest of China's First Lady Madame Chiang Kai-Shek in his findings―Sullivan follows his investigation to its devastating conclusion.

Chua’s page-turning debut brings to life a historical era rife with turbulent social forces and groundbreaking forensic advances, when race and class defined the very essence of power, sex, and justice, and introduces a fascinating character in Detective Sullivan, a mixed race former Army officer who is still reckoning with his own history.

__________________


Murder by Degrees
Ritu Mukerji - Simon & Schuster
[from the publisher]
Philadelphia, 1875: It is the start of term at Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania. Dr. Lydia Weston, professor and anatomist, is immersed in teaching her students in the lecture hall and hospital. When the body of a patient, Anna Ward, is dredged out of the Schuylkill River, the young chambermaid’s death is deemed a suicide. But Lydia is suspicious and she is soon brought into the police investigation.

Aided by a diary filled with cryptic passages of poetry, Lydia discovers more about the young woman she thought she knew. Through her skill at the autopsy table and her clinical acumen, Lydia draws nearer the truth. Soon a terrible secret, long hidden, will be revealed. But Lydia must act quickly, before she becomes the next target of those who wished to silence Anna.

__________________


BEST PAPERBACK ORIGINAL




Hide
Tracy Clark -Thomas & Mercer)
[from the publisher]
From acclaimed author Tracy Clark comes a page-turning mystery featuring hard-boiled Chicago detective Harriet Foster, who’s on the hunt for a serial killer with a deadly affinity for redheads.

When a young red-haired woman is found brutally murdered in downtown Chicago, one detail stands out: the red lipstick encircling her wrists and ankles.

Detective Harriet Foster is on the case, even though she’s still grieving the sudden death of her partner. As a Black woman in a male-dominated department, Foster anticipates a rocky road ahead acclimating to a new team―and building trust with her new partner isn’t coming easily.

After another victim turns up with the same lipstick markings, Foster suspects she’s looking for a serial killer. Through a tip from a psychiatrist, Foster learns about Bodie Morgan: a troubled man with a twisted past and a penchant for pretty young redheads with the bluest eyes. As Foster wades into Morgan’s sinister history, the killer continues their gruesome assault on Chicago’s streets.

In her desperate race to catch the murderer before they strike again, Foster will have to confront the darkest of secrets―including her own.

__________________


Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers
Jesse Q. Sutanto - Berkley
[from the publisher]
Vera Wong is a lonely little old lady—ah, lady of a certain age—who lives above her forgotten tea shop in the middle of San Francisco’s Chinatown. Despite living alone, Vera is not needy, oh no. She likes nothing more than sipping on a good cup of Wulong and doing some healthy detective work on the Internet about what her Gen-Z son is up to.

Then one morning, Vera trudges downstairs to find a curious thing—a dead man in the middle of her tea shop. In his outstretched hand, a flash drive. Vera doesn’t know what comes over her, but after calling the cops like any good citizen would, she sort of . . . swipes the flash drive from the body and tucks it safely into the pocket of her apron. Why? Because Vera is sure she would do a better job than the police possibly could, because nobody sniffs out a wrongdoing quite like a suspicious Chinese mother with time on her hands. Vera knows the killer will be back for the flash drive; all she has to do is watch the increasing number of customers at her shop and figure out which one among them is the killer.

What Vera does not expect is to form friendships with her customers and start to care for each and every one of them. As a protective mother hen, will she end up having to give one of her newfound chicks to the police?


Later.

___________________________

Manuel Ramos writes crime fiction. Read his latest story, Northside Nocturne, in the award-winning anthology Denver Noir, edited by Cynthia Swanson, published by Akashic Books.

Thursday, January 25, 2024

Chicanonautica: Homeward Through Planet Nevada

by Ernest Hogan



Getting back to Planet Nevada, gas was $3.69 in the town of Jackpot.



“These gas prices make no sense,” said Mike.



Then wide-open spaces. Cattle country. Surreal landscapes with clouds casting shadows as they caressed mountains dusted with snow.



A lot of America, even in the 21st century, is empty—at least of the unnatural act called civilization—and quiet. We passed through a lot of places without cell service on this trip. Hope some of it stays that way.



The entire town of McGill seemed to be closed or boarded up.



A few houses were occupied, and sporting Halloween paraphernalia.



Near Ely, on highway 101 was a magnificent automobile graveyard.



Behemoths from a past era rusting in the sun. 



If only they could speak.



There were signs of danger.



Further along was a tank.



and a piece of artillery in front of VFW hall.



Then, there was the Prospector Hotel & Casino.



In the middle of a vast nowhere, an ancient covered wagon and sculptures beckoned visitors.



Colorful dinosaurs shared the winding driveway with a copper stagecoach with horses, driver and dog.



Centuries collapse in a time warp where past, present, and future are one.



We passed an old, old sign announcing EMIGRANT SPRINGS. Back in the 19th century the people we call pioneers were called emigrants, because they were leaving the United States of America.



An abandoned truck had TRUMP 2024 painted on it in huge letters.



We went from highway to highway. 93 . .  . 168 . . . 269. Numbers calling out in the timespace continuum. My intergalactic road in broad daylight.



Mike took us on a detour because he wanted to see Valley of Fire State Park.



And it was well worth it.



We hit it in the nick of time–the setting sun was setting the rocks ablaze. 



The moon provided cosmic contrast.



Finally, in Las Vegas gas was $4.89 a gallon.



We spent the night at the Henderson place. I dreamed about killer chimps.



Next morning, homeward. And once again, the country has changed. Are we somehow causing it through our travel? Or is it just that our perspectives have been altered?



Back on the road, a burly pickup with a FUCK BIDEN decal whizzed by.



We went through places we had driven through earlier, only this time we could see the landscape in blazing sunlight. Puts a different spin on Stephen Fry reading ghost stories.



Meanwhile, in Washington, Republicans were going after each other like piranha after a chunk of bloody meat. And I really hope that Biden doesn’t become the 21st century LBJ . . .



The road corkscrewed in and out of the sun.



In the desert near Kingman, in a freshly installed, walled housing tract, a house flew the stars and stripes, a DON’T TREAD ON ME flag, and a Kari Lake banner.



The Love’s truck stop in Kingman was selling gas for $4.29 a gallon.



When we got home, the neighbors had set up a spectacular Halloween tableau,



and one of our agaves had sprouted a stalk.



The next day someone stole the plastic skeletons from the neighbor’s front yard, even though they were tied down. Seems that while miniature and giant plastic skeletons are plentiful, life-sized ones are hard to find and expensive.



Ernest Hogan wants you to buy Guerrilla Mural of a Siren’s Song: 15 Gonzo Science Fiction Stories, and watch for announcements about his reading from it in the podcast version of Gómez-Peña’s Mex Files.