Los Angeles Times Festival of Books

From LA Librería 

www.la-libreria.net 

 

The Los Angeles Times Festival of Books is just around the corner. Join us on April 20-21 at the University of Southern California for a weekend packed with books, authors, illustrators, activities, more books :) and, of course, lots of fun! 

 

Come and check our wonderful collection of books in Spanish at the Book Festival!

Board books, picture books, comics, chapter books, young adult books, adult books...

 

Looking for libros? Don't miss our two spots!

 

* Booth #590, across the Children's Stage

* Booth #003, next to the Latinidad Stage. We are the official bookseller for the Latinidad Stage.

Besides, there’s a terrific author line-up for all the stages. All outdoor stages and activities are free.

 Storytime and Author Book Signing hosted by LA librería

 

Come and say Hi/Hola!

 

We will be across the Children's Stage in Booth #590

 

Bilingual Storytime with Mrs. Angel and Ms. Kimi from Anaheim Public Library. April 20th, 11:00 am

Calling all LA Dodger fans, families, and especially children! Kathy Contreras will be signing copies of her new book “Born to Play Beisbol: The Magical Career of Fernando Valenzuela”. April 20th, 1:30 pm

Isabel Quintero, author of “My Papi Has a Motorcycle” will be signing copies of her brand new book “Mama’s panza”. April 20th, 2:00 pm

Holly Ayala will be signing copies of her fun and unique ABC book “ABC El Salvador”. April 21st, 3:00 pm

 

Meet Jorge Argueta, who will be signing copies of his book “Olita and Manyula The Big Birthday”. April 21st, 3:30 pm

 

Author of bilingual picture books, René Colato Laínez will be joining us and signing copies of his latest books “Do I belong here? / ¿Es este mi lugar?” and “Let's Play in the Park / Juguemos en el parque”. April 21st, 3:30pm

 

 

* Here’s what you can’t miss at the Latinidad Stage:

 

Festival goers will be able to purchase books by the featured authors below in our booth. Authors will participate in book signings following their panels.

 

* Hora de cuentos con LAPL. April 20th and 21st, 10:00 am

Recommended for your little ones!

 

 * Lil' Libros Storytime with Cindy Montenegro and Hazel Quintanilla. April 20th and 21st, 11:00 am. Recommended for your little ones!

 

* Lectura en español con Luis García, Carla Guelfenbein y Marisol Shulz. April 20th, 12:00 pm

 

* Poetry Reading with Yesika Salgado, Angela García, Melania Marte. April 20th and 21st, 1:15 pm

 

* Exploring the latino wealth gap with Gaventura, Linda Garcia and Natalie Torres-Hadad. April 20th, 4:30 pm

  

* De aquí y de Allá: The first gen experience with Julissa Arce, Verónica Benavidez and Alejandra Campoverdi. April 21st, 11:30 am

 

* When Writing is personal: in conversation with Justin Torres. April 21st, 12:25 pm

 

* Oaxacan Influence: How a community has shaped culture in all corners, a conversation with the López Family, Odilia Romero and Mireya Olivera. April 21st, 1:20 pm

 

* Blood in blood out’ with Jimmy Santiago Baca and Taylor Hackford. April 21st, 2:15 pm

 

*Voto Latino with Gustavo Arellano, Angelica Salas, Sonja Francine Diaz y Gustavo Madrid. April 21st, 3:15 pm

 

*Everything Latinidad: Challenging the Myth of the Monolith Mario, Alberto Obando, Valentina, Alan Pelaez Lopez. April 21st, 4:00 pm

 

¡Ahí nos vemos!

 

Virtual Book Festivals: L.A. Times Festival of Books and Texas Book Festival

L.A. Times Festival of Books 

Click the link to register for the next virtual Festival of Books events- November 4 to November 17.

https://events.latimes.com/festivalofbooks/2020-lineup/?2_route=/client-embeds/la-times-festival-of-books-2020/1/2/__/&

 

L.A. Times 25th Festival of Books is Going Virtual!

 

Join the Los Angeles Times, in partnership with USC, in celebrating 25 years of the Festival of Books, Stories & Ideas with 26 individual virtual events. Due to the coronavirus, The Times has reimagined the festival as a communitywide virtual gathering.

 

Beginning on Sunday, October 18, and continuing over the course of four weeks, The Times will celebrate storytelling with author panels, readings, and other events. Please reserve your virtual front-row seat now for this free celebration of books! For details, see the schedule below and follow the festival on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram (#bookfest).

  

Texas Book Festival

 

https://www.texasbookfestival.org/

 

The 2020 Texas Book Festival will be hosting its 25th anniversary year online. We will be hosting all of our live programming through Crowdcast, a video broadcasting platform. All pre-recorded programming will be released on our website. The best way for you to stay up to date with every part of our virtual programming is to follow our social media accounts as well as our two Crowdcast channels, Texas Book Festival and Texas Book Festival 2.

 

 

Poetry, Awards, (and Shadows) in the Air

Melinda Palacio

Mayor Helene Schneider Proclaims Poetry Month in Santa Barbara.

April is National Poetry Month. I was fortunate to have witnessed the declaration of Poetry Month in Santa Barbara by Mayor Helene Schneider. She read the proclamation and handed the ornate sheaf to Santa Barbara Poet Laureate, Sojourner Kincaid Rolle.

Standing with SB Poet Laureate Sojourner Kincaid Rolle

Earlier in the month, I had the pleasure of seeing Juan Felipe Herrera receive the Robert Kirsch Award for lifetime achievement at the Los Angeles Times Book Awards, part of the festivities of the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, held at USC April 9 & 10.

Juan Felipe Herrera 

It was wonderful to hear the polite audience erupt in grand enthusiasm for our poet who has just been appointed to second term as Poet Laureate of the United States, the first Chicano with the honor of National Poet Laureate.

The Poet's Shadow

Our Poet Laureate pays respect to his roots during his acceptance speech.

Walking back with his award and shadow.

Juan Felipe Herrera and Melinda Palacio

Initially, I wasn't going to attend the festival of books, let alone the awards ceremony, but I'm sure glad I did. I almost let a little rain and overall exhaustion from having rallied to make all of my reading and panel commitments at the AWP conference, only a week earlier in Los Angeles, and only a few days after the funeral services for my grandmother. My first day at AWP I struggled to find my voice. I arrived on Thursday and had missed the offsite reading for the Coiled Serpent release party (I also missed the Coiled Serpent events at the book festival due to not quite being myself after spending a month in Del Rio before my grandmother's funeral). In the evening, during the Con Tinta Pachanga and the reading for the Poetry of Resistance anthology,  I had the biggest frog in my throat. John Martinez filmed all the readers. I was not aware of being videoed or taped. However, I am glad the event was documented even if I wasn't able to give 100 percent. I followed through with the reading, along with my two panels, and an interview with the Griffith Park Reading Series. Although both Vicky Vertiz and Veronica Reyes, organizers of my AWP panels, along with Sara Finery Turgeon of the Griffith Park Reading Series, had given me an out and said that I did not have to attend, given my grievous state, I was determined to follow through with my literary commitments.

A week later, I kept asking myself why I had set so many plans in motion and had agreed to another big book event in Los Angeles. In my mind, I was thinking that this book event would be just for fun. I'd tag along with Reyna and we would catch up and relax and attend I was under no obligation to present or read. It would be a nerdy book vacation for two days, and a chance to acquaint myself with all of the changes in Downtown L.A. since I moved to Santa Barbara. However, after hearing that fellow Bloguero, Michael Sedano was in the hospital and that we wouldn't have a chance to catch up at the festival and seeing the rare sight of rain, along with a terrible accident on the 101, I had second thoughts about spending another weekend downtown. While I was driving to Los Angeles, I rehearsed a new script. I was going to tell Reyna that I would have lunch with her and then I was going to drive back home. Reyna Grande was one of the ceremony's presenters and she got me a ticket and seat in the front row. We missed most of the book festival, but arrived in time for Reyna to participate in the award ceremony's dress rehearsal while I spent an hour taking in as much of the book festival as I could. The best part was running into my old pen pal from High School. I thanked him for his handwritten correspondence and urged him to write me a new letter after all these years (I hope he does). In addition to Reyna's presentation and Juan Felipe's award, I was pleasantly surprised to see that La Bloga's own, Sam Quinones, was nominated for an award in the the Current Issues category for his book, Dreamland: The True Tale of America's Opiate Epidemic. Last, Valeria Luiselli's novel, The Story of My Teeth, won in the Fiction category. This same book also garnered the First Fiction award last year. Read Olga Garcia Echeverria's review of this unique novel on La Bloga. 

Reyna Grande presented the award for debut novel to Chigozie Obioma for The Fishermen.

It was nice to see La Bloga's Sam Quinones up for a Current Interest Award.

La Bloga Represents

Reyna Grande and Melinda Palacio

Happy Poetry Month. Read some new poetry anthologies for a sampling of voices: Coiled Serpent: Poets Arising from the Cultural Quakes and Shifts of Los Angeles, edited by La Bloga's Daniel Olivas and Neelanjana Banerjee, and Ruben J. Rodriguez (Tia Chucha Press 2016) and Poetry of Resistance: Voices for Social Justice (University of Arizona Press 2016), edited by Francisco X. Alarcón and Odilia Galván Rodríguez, Rare Feathers: Poems on Bird & Art, edited by Nancy Gifford Chryss Yost, and George Yatchisin (Gunpowder Press 2015).

If you missed hearing about my big poetry event and art show in Santa Barbara earlier this month, you can read about it here on La Bloga for April 08.

Happy Earth Day!
Happy National Poetry Month!
Happy Jazz Fest in New Orleans! 

Los Angeles Times Festival of Books 2015

Aprirl 18 & 19, 2015

USC Campus

Free Admission

The Los Angeles Times Festival of Books began in 1996 with a simple goal: to bring together the people who create books with the people who love to read them. The festival was an immediate success and has evolved to include live bands, poetry readings, chef demos, cultural entertainment and artists creating their work on-site. There’s also a photography exhibit, film screenings followed by Q&A’s and discussion panels on some of today’s hottest topics.

La Bloga Blogueros at the LA Festival of Books

Kaya Press hosts Los Angeles Poet Laureate Luis J. Rodriguez and Daniel Olivas for a poetry reading at noon on Saturday, April 18, Tent #380: http://t.co/501nJCMfqu

René Colato Laínez will be singing books at the East West Discovery Press, Booth 503 on Sunday, April 18 from 1:00-3:00 pm

To see the complete schedule of readings and events visit 

http://events.latimes.com/festivalofbooks/

Premios Actitud El Salvador

Muchas gracias for all your votes. The last day to vote is today, April 15. I am in the category "Personalidad conActitud." Click in the link. They will ask for your email address. Then, they will send a code to you email address that you will need to finalize the vote. Nuevamente, muchas gracias.

http://laprensadelosangeles.com/premiosactitud2015/perfilnominado.aspx?categoria=11#René

From La to L.A.

Melinda Palacio

I've spent most of National Poetry Month in Louisiana. The Spring here has been unusually cool, almost cold with skies darkening at noon and crazy rain dumping sideways and falling at angles that flip umbrellas upside down.

Last weekend, California ordered up sunshine and warmth for the Los Angeles Times Book Festival. 

I was one of the lucky authors to be invited to sit on a panel with David Treuer, Luis J. Rodriguez, Reyna Grande, and our moderator Hector Tobar.

If you tuned into La Bloga on Tuesday, you'll be able to read Michael Sedano's excellent account of the Festival. We had a great crowd. I'm glad a full house attended the panel because it was one of the best (Sure, I always say that, but last Saturday's panel was up there).

Reyna Grande and Melinda Palacio riding the metro to the festival.

I am grateful to Hector Tobar and the organizers of the festival for including me on this panel. Of course, I always think of great things to say after the panel is over; this is probably why I am a writer and not a news pundit. In hindsight, I wish I had talked more about the memoir qualities of How Fire Is a Story, Waiting.

Every author interviewed on our panel had a new memoir, except for me. Originally, the panel was going to be called: Memoir: American Identity. Although I was the only one without a memoir, I could see how my poetry book disguises itself as a memoir and reveals several themes that memoirist lean on. However, as Frank Mundo points out in his review for the Examiner, the narrator of the poems in How Fire, is not always Melinda Palacio, but, rather, a made up narrator, especially in "Water Mark," where I make up an entire childhood in New Orleans, a town I first visited ten years ago.

"If you only read one new book of poetry for National Poetry Month this year, make it this one." --Frank Mundo

A few weeks before the Los Angeles Times Festival, the organizers decided to leave me on the panel with three memoir authors and simply changed the name of the panel to Writing American Identity. This allowed for a lively discussion on identity, stereotypes, and I, along with the audience, had a chance to hear from David Treuer, author of Rez Life, who was very funny; I'm looking forward to reading his book.

Melinda Palacio, Reyna Grande and Hector Tobar before the Writing American Identity Panel (not shown are David Truer and Luis J. Rodriguez).

I'm glad I was able to dash to the festival last weekend. Many thanks to my super hostess, Reyna Grande, for picking me up, asking her five-year-old daughter to give up her princess bed for me, and having her 11-year-old son make us sweet potato pancakes, bacon and eggs. Our metro to  adventure to USC, the festival's site, will be the subject of a future blog post.

Happy National Poetry Month

Here's a video of me reading Martin Espada's Isabel's Corrido from his award-winning book, The Trouble Ball. Among Espada's many awards, he received the Milt Kessler Award for the Trouble Ball. I was lucky enough to be a finalist for the 2013 award, which went to Marilyn Nelson.

Recently, Daniel Olivas interviewed me for the Los Angeles Review of Books. Read the entire interview here. 

Congratulations to all the finalists for the 2013 InternationalLatino Book Awards, especially fellow Bloguero and La Bloga Founder, Rudy Ch. Garcia. How Fire is a Story, Waiting is also a finalist. Winners will be announced next month after the awards ceremony at the Instituto Cervantes in NYC. Last year, Ocotillo Dreams, won the Mariposa Award for Best First Book and an honorable mention for Historical Fiction. 

Last night, April 25, the events coordinator at the Jefferson Parish Library was impressed by the turnout (I think my name in lights helped).

Upcoming Events:

April 26, Tonight in Baton Rouge at Louisiana State University

& the beat goes on, featuring Tony Medina, with My Nguyen, Martha Reed, and Melinda Palacio.

May 11, The Pasadena Lit Festival:

Starting: 2:00PM to 3:00PM

PANEL: Omnipresent: The Vibrancy of Latino Literature (2:00pm-3:00pm)
Omnipresent: the Vibrancy of Latino Literature offers something for everyone. From memoir to noir mystery, poetry to historical fiction, and magical realism to L.A. fiction. The showcase of literature by Latino authors includes Reyna Grande (The Distance Between Us: A Memoir), Manuel Ramos (Desperado: A Mile High Noir), Alex Espinoza (The Five Acts of Diego León), Melinda Palacio (How Fire Is a Story, Waiting), and moderator Daniel Olivas (The Book of Want). (Julia Child Stage)

May 18, Tia Chucha's Words and Music Festival,

The Banned Books panel is slated to begin at 1:30 and will end at 2:15 on Saturday May 18, 2013 at Los Angeles Mission College, 13356 Eldridge Avenue, Sylmar, CA. 91342.

May 19, Bat Cave Reading Series at the Old Zoo in Griffith Park at 4pm.

The readers are Chiwan Choi, Melinda Palacio, Diana Wagman and Amanda Yates, with our special musical guest, Bloody Death Skull