Un Poco

Manuel Ramos

This post is quick and slim -- the holidays are bearing down and time is short.

LIBRARY JOURNAL SELECTS DÍAZ AS ONE OF THE BEST OF 2007
Among the Library Journal's recently released list of the best books of 2007 can be found The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, by Junot Díaz (Penguin Group ). Here's LJ's take on this highly-regarded novel:

Díaz follows up his breathtaking story collection, Drown, with a brief and wondrous novel about a second-generation Dominican nerd nicknamed Oscar Wao. More than a coming-of-age tale—and more than an account of the Latino experience—this robust work uses Oscar’s sharp and distinctive voice to delineate the human struggle to define oneself. (LJ Xpress Reviews, 8/28/07).

The LJ list also includes The Spanish Bow by Andromeda Romano-Lax (Harcourt):

Loosely based on the life of the great Spanish cellist Pablo Casals, Romano-Lax’s riveting debut novel follows a Catalan boy’s musical journey through 50 years of Spain’s tumultuous history. (LJ 8/07).

FOURTH ANNUAL WRITERS STUDIO LITERARY CONTEST
First place winners win $250, publication in Arapahoe Community College's literary magazine, Progenitor, and a guest invitation to the annual Literary Festival in April. The winners read their work at the festival. See General Submission guidelines here. Writers Studio runs a yearly literary contest in fiction, creative non-fiction and poetry. The contest is open to ACC students, faculty and the Colorado community. All entries are considered for publication in The Progenitor. Submissions for this year's contest will be accepted January 1, 2008 through March 1, 2008.

NEW LITERARY SITE
We recently received the following message:

I am very pleased to announce the creation of alternative-publications, a new virtual press devoted to publishing innovative Latina/o literature.

Alternative-publications intends to provide an outlet for innovative literature that may not be considered marketable by established presses, to encourage the public to play an active role in the literary process, to serve as a public action in favor of a literature that is not market-driven, and to create a database of
reader-responses for future use by researchers.

Please pay us a visit (and spread the word!): http://alternative-publications.ucmerced.edu

(Please note: if you get a message to the effect that the server is not found, please try again after a few minutes. If the problem persists, please let us know).

Looking forward to your comments,

Manuel M. Martin-Rodriguez
Professor of Literature and Founding Faculty
University of California, Merced

TALES OF MYSTERY AND SUSPENSE



ANOTHER LOOK AT THE GREAT LOTUSLAND COVER
This book is finally on its way -- early 2008. More info on Daniel Olivas's website. You know you want it.



Later.

Tanto

Manuel Ramos

Several bits and pieces this week: a pair of grand old maestros are still stirring the pot; an opportunity for maestros-to-be; readings and performances that will stir your soul; appearances by Our Lady of Guadalupe; y más.


THE FIRST TORTILLA WINS LAND OF ENCHANTMENT AWARD
Rudolfo Anaya's latest children's book The First Tortilla (University of New Mexico Press, 2007) has been chosen for the Land of Enchantment Book Award. Taos artist Amy Cordova is the illustrator for this popular book - check out her website.

The Land of Enchantment Award is a children's book award designed to encourage New Mexico youth to read books of high literary quality. The award is sponsored by the New Mexico Library Association and the New Mexico International Reading Association and includes master reading lists for children and young adults. Information about the award is available at www.loebookaward.com.

The First Tortilla is the story of a young Mexican girl who saves her village by making the first tortilla with the help of the Mountain Spirit.

Congratulations to Rudolfo Anaya on this award. There's more: Bless Me, Ultima is now being read nationwide as part of the National Endowment for the Arts' Big Read program; and the Albuquerque Museum Foundation named Anaya as its Notable New Mexican.
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MORE NEWS FROM ROLANDO HINOJOSA
Another of the writing legends, Rolando Hinojosa, was awarded a Doctor of Letters degree from Texas A & M University in August. Hinojosa's recent publications include: The Forgotten War, So-Called, published by Veterans for Peace; Klail City Redux published by Puentes (Núm 5, Otoño 2007); Lone Star Sleuths (University of Texas Press, 2007) included Chapter One of Partners in Crime; and Texas Tech Press published his short story Death and Obedience in Nasario García's anthology Brujerías. As I recently mentioned here on La Bloga, Hinojosa also was presented the Bookend Award (with Dagoberto Gilb) at this year's Texas Book Festival.
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AUTHORS READING IN DENVER

November 30, 7:30 PM
Tattered Cover Book Store Historic LoDo
Denver's Deputy Mayor Guillermo Vidal will read from and sign his book Boxing for Cuba: An Immigrant's Story of Despair, Endurance & Redemption (Ghost Road Press, 2007). The book is described as "a poignant story of struggle, forgiveness, and the joy of returning home."
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December 1, 6:00 PM (reception) 6:30 PM - 8:00 PM (main event)
The Laboratory of Art and Ideas
El Laboratorio continues its exciting series of writers reading and performing at the Lab in Belmar. Up next, Sheryl Luna will read from her award-winning book Pity the Drowned Horses (Notre Dame Press, 2005), followed by a performance by the always entertaining and enlightening storyteller Angel Vigil. $10 ($5 members). For more information call 303-934-1777.
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December 8, 2:00 PM
Tattered Cover Colfax Avenue
Colorado author Lydia Gil, and local illustrator Hernán Sosa, will present their bilingual picture book Mimís Parranda/La Parranda de Mimí (Piñata Books, 2007). "Rich with Puerto Rican cultural traditions and complemented by vibrant illustrations, this beautiful story will have children ages 3-7 eagerly anticipating their own holiday traditions."
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December 13, 2007 7:30 PM
Tattered Cover Colfax Avenue
John Nichols will read from and sign his new novel The Empanada Brotherhood (Chronicle, 2007). The publisher says, "It's Greenwich Village in the early 1960s, when expatriates, artists, and colorful bums are kings. A tiny stand selling empanadas near the corner of Bleecker and MacDougal streets is the center of the action for the shy narrator, an aspiring writer just out of college. Charming and insightful, this deceptively simple novel is a tale told by a master. It is a wise coming-of-age story, full of joy and touched by heartbreak, that captures a special time and place with extraordinary empathy and humor."

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CONTEST FOR UNPUBLISHED AUTHORS
The Crested Butte Writers announced the return of their writing contest for unpublished authors, The Sandy.

Categories & Final Round Judges
Romance --- Selina McLemore, Associate Editor, Grand Central (formerly Warner)
Mainstream Adult Fiction-Mollie Glick, Agent, Jean Naggar Literary Agency
Suspense/Thriller- Katie Gilligan, Associate Editor Thomas Dunne Books, a division of St. Martin's Press
Fantasy/Science Fiction-Melissa Ann Singer, Sr. Editor, Tor
Children's & YA-Jennifer Rees, - Editor, Scholastic Books

Eligibility--All authors unpublished in novel length fiction.
Enter-- The first 20 pages and up to a 2 page synopsis, for a total page count of 22 pages.
Receipt date-February 17, 2008.
Fee--$30; Friends of Library members, fee= $20

Awards-- Winners announced at the awards luncheon, held Friday June 20, 2008.
1st place will receive $50 and a certificate, 2nd place will receive $25 and a certificate, and third place will receive a certificate.
More info here.

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SU TEATRO PRESENTS TISH HINOJOSA
El Centro Su Teatro will present the original production, Á Colorado en una Noche de Navidad, To Colorado on a Christmas Night, featuring the music of Tish Hinojosa and written and directed by Anthony J. Garcia, December 13 – 23. Á Colorado is a theatrical celebration of the music of renowned singer/songwriter Tish Hinojosa. Su Teatro company actors will sing and reinterpret her songs, and Tish will join the cast for a one night only special performance on December 21.

Su Teatro developed Á Colorado as a part of its annual St. Cajetan’s Reunification Project. What is now known as the Auraria Higher Education Center was once a thriving Westside barrio, and the still standing but desanctified St. Cajetan’s church was the spiritual center of the neighborhood. Every holiday season, Su Teatro travels to Auraria to present a community based folk drama and symbolically return the neighborhood to the families it was taken from. Eugenia Rawls theater at the King Center, 877 Lawrence Way, December 13 – 23. Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays at 7:30 PM with Saturday and Sunday 3:00 PM matinees.

Tickets are $18 general and $15 students/seniors. Special comadre group rates are available. For tickets and information call El Centro Su Teatro at (303) 296-0219 and visit www.suteatro.org and www.myspace.com/elcentrosuteatro.

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The Denver Art Museum opens its door for free from December 12 through January 6, and invites everyone to check out the pre-Columbian and Spanish colonial art galleries in the Museum's North Building, fourth level. Bilingual and family activities are promised. The event is billed as Our Lady of Guadalupe at the DAM, so expect a vision.

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December 13 - Vino y Chocolate hosted by the Board of Directors of Adelante Mujer, Inc., 5:00 - 8:00 PM, Centro San Juan Diego, 2830 Lawrence St., Denver, CO. Support the Immigrant and Migrant Project of Bienestar Family Services of Centro San Juan Diego by bringing a gift of toys for children age's birth to 10 years. Indicate age and gender on children's gifts. RSVP - 303-297-8696.

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Al fin -- I got the pleasant news that my short story, If We Had Been Dancing, has been selected by Stories on Stage to be performed by the Buntport Theatre for the Tales of Mystery and Suspense program (January 4 and 5, 2008). Other authors for that night include Edgar Allen Poe, Neil Gaiman, Roald Dahl, and Jack Ritchie. Heavy company.

The Stories on Stage annual holiday program is set for December 16 at the Stage Theater in the DCPA. Featured authors for Making Merry are Dylan Thomas, John Cheever, Truman Capote, and Ellis Parker Butler. Sounds good.

Whew -- it's late. Time for a cool one.

Later.

This and That

Manuel Ramos



TRINIDAD SÁNCHEZ, JR. MEMORIAL FOUNDATION
Regina Chávez y Sánchez has established a foundation in the name of the late poet, Trinidad Sánchez, Jr. A promotional flyer announces that several of Sánchez's books are available including Why Am I So Brown?, Jalapeño Blues, Poems by Father & Son, Compartiendo de la Nada, and Authentic Mexican Food is HOT! She notes that she is working on several unpublished manuscripts, developing a scholarship in Trinidad's name, and that she wants everyone to know her husband's "words and wisdom." You can get on her mailing list by contacting her at rchavezysanchez@hotmail.com, or writing to her at 827 Park Avenue West, Suite 203, Denver, CO 80205.


WORDS & MUSIC: A LITERARY FEAST IN NEW ORLEANS
Words & Music, 2007, opens November 14 and runs through November 18. The overall theme for 2007 is When Cultures Collide: The Fallout for Life and Literature. This event always features a stellar list of writers and on that list this year are Loida Maritza Pérez and Marie Arana. Pérez, a native of the Dominican Republic, is author of Geographies of Home (Viking, 1999). Arana, originally from Peru, is Editor of The Washington Post's review section Book World, and author of the novel Cellophane (Dial Press, 2006 ) and the memoir American Chica (Dial Press, 2001). For more about this event, click here.


MARTIN LIMÓN
Martin Limón continues his appearances in support of his latest Sueño and Bascom military whodunit, The Wandering Ghost (Soho Crime, 2007). He will read and sign at the Poisoned Pen in Scottsdale, AZ (James Doss is also on the program), on November 14 at 7:00 P.M., 4014 N. Goldwater Blvd., Suite 101; Murder by the Book, 2342 Bissonnet, Houston, TX, on November 15 at 6:30 P.M.; The Mystery Bookstore, 1036-C Broxton Avenue, Los Angeles, November 16 at 7:00 P.M.; and M is for Mystery, November 17, 1:30 P.M., 86 East Third Ave., San Mateo, CA.


Here's an announcement about a new book:
"FOCUS ON THE FABULOUS ... features 33 GLBT people as they write about life, love and living in Colorado. Edited by established author Matt Kailey and published by Johnson Books, the anthology was among the Denver area's top five of the September 2007 best seller list of nonfiction paperback books. Titled Two Militants Who Just Wouldn't Shut Up, the essay by Donaciano Martinez is partly about growing up in an anti-Chicano and anti-gay town and partly about the Colorado Springs Gay Liberation Front that was co-founded by Martinez and Truman Harris shortly after the 1969 Stonewall riots that marked the second wave of the battle against gay oppression."

Another press blurb:
"TINY TIM IS DEAD will be staged at 7:30 p.m. every Friday and Saturday from November 23 through January 5 at the nonprofit Theatre Group's Phoenix Theater, 1124 Santa Fe Drive in Denver. Written by Barbara Lebow, the play is described as wickedly amusing and delicately poignant as it ventures into the world of urban street people whose shelter is made of cardboard boxes and trash-can hearths. Among the homeless characters are: Otis Pope, an Army veteran who decides who can stay and who must leave the shelter; Verna, a disoriented and sometimes child-like woman; Verna's nameless and mute young son; Charlie, an unemployed blue collar worker; Azalee Hodge, an outspoken woman trying to climb back up; and, Filomeno Cordero, an immigrant from Central America. Discovering a worn-out copy of Charles Dickens' book A Christmas Carol, the group responds to Verna's pleas to re-enact the old story as a gift for her son. Verna cannot wait to play the part of Tiny Tim, while Pope is cast in the Scrooge role. In a revisionist inspiration, Pope becomes MC of the Tiny Tim Telethon. Unfamiliar with the Dickens' story, Filomeno mistakes the book's Marley character for reggae music star Bob Marley. The role of Verna is played by Shelly Bordas. Tickets are $22 per person, with $17 discount tickets for seniors, students and groups of ten or more."

STORIES ON STAGE presents Masterpieces of Science Fiction on November 15, 7:00 P.M., Jones Theater, DCPA. Among the featured authors are Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, and Neil Gaiman. Presenters include Gabriella Cavallero.

A movie note: I was lucky enough to see the opening film at the Denver Starz Film Festival last night. The Savages was directed by Tamara Jenkins and stars Philip Seymour Hoffman, Laura Linney and Philip Bosco. This is an excellent movie. Hoffman and Linney are thoroughly convincing as the siblings who are forced to deal with their dying, demented father, whom they have avoided for years. And Bosco's take on the father is unsettling because his character is all too-familiar, too close for comfort. The story avoids easy sentimentality and glib moralizing but it does deal with core issues: the "inconvenience" of death; responsibility to family, regardless of past history; and rediscovering the solid comfort of our own life's potential at the same time that we recognize its fleeting nature. The main characters are writers: Linney (Wendy) is an unsuccessful playwright filled with guilt, some of which centers around the stories she tries to tell, stories that she herself labels as self-absorbed and middle-class; while her brother, Jon, who has achieved a certain amount of respectability as a drama professor and critic, is unable to commit to the idea of love. They are very different human beings who eventually must recognize their commonalities. Although this is not a happy movie, we get a glimpse of the spark of humanity that we all want to see in one another. There isn't a Latino in sight, which always makes me shake my head, but I still recommend the film.

That's all for a very busy week.

Later.

Bits

Manuel Ramos

SAM QUINONES
We received the following note from the University of New Mexico Press:

Sam Quinones' Antonio's Gun and Delfino's Dream (UNM Press, 2007), a book of immigration vignettes, picked up great reviews from the San Francisco Chronicle, Los Angeles Times, Publishers Weekly, and Library Journal, among other publications. The newest feature of Sam's website is a link where the public can tell their True Tale, based on Sam's first book, True Tales From Another Mexico (UNM Press, 2001).

Here's the link: http://www.samquinones.com/other_stories.asp

You can read La Bloga's interview with Quinones, by Daniel Olivas, here.

And a review of Antonio's Gun and Delfino's Dream, by R. Ch. Garcia, here.


GENERATION TO GENERATION
Stories on Stage (Theater of the Imagination) begins its 2007-2008 season on August 26 with a program entitled Generation to Generation. Stories on Stage has taken a great concept and turned it into a great series of entertaining events. The concept? Excellent literature read by accomplished and acclaimed actors. Not plays, not performances: readings. The motto for Stories on Stage is Adults Deserve a Great Story ... and Cookies & Milk, Too!


Generation to Generation features four selections: The Queen of Mold by Ruth Reichi, My Son the Fanatic by Hanef Kureishi, Vanderbilt Genes by Augusten Burroughs, and an excerpt from Migrant Souls by Arturo Islas (William Morrow, 1990). The Islas piece will be read by Adriana Gaviria, who performed last year in Hermanas at the FringeNYC and the 52nd Street Project's Power of Ten: Plays That Count at the Public Theater in New York. Her other credits include Anna In The Tropics, September Shoes, and The Birds. She's worked with numerous theater companies including the Immigrants' Theater Project, Young Playwrights, Inc., and Pregones and Repertorio Español. Other readers are Annette Helde, Joshua Coomer, and Shishir Kurup.

Migrant Souls has an excellent reputation. The Library Journal's review of this book said: "Continuing the saga of the Angel family that began in Rain God, Islas explores the effects of life on the border. Burdened by the pride of matriarch Mama Chona, all her children and grandchildren are raised to hate their Mexican, dark-skinned heritage, valuing a mythical light-skinned Spanish ancestry. Islas contrasts rebel Josie Salazar, dark and divorced, who fights the family on every front, with Josie's widowed aunt, Jesus Maria, who attempts to maintain Mama Chona's values despite the scorn of her children. The author displays consummate skill in portraying the anguish of Hispanics living on both sides of a literal and figurative border in the second volume of a proposed trilogy. An excellent addition to fiction collections."

Generation to Generation is scheduled for August 26, 2:00 PM and 7:00 PM, Stage Theater, Denver Center for the Performing Arts.

WHAT HAPPENED AMERICA?
SEIU Local 105 and the Laughing Bean Café present: What Happened America?, featuring The Laughing Bean Players. This fundraiser is tonight, August 17, at 7:30 PM at the Mi Casa Theater, 360 Acoma, Denver. Tickets are $20. Call 303-698-7963, ext. 150.

SEIU Local 105 represents 5,200 employees in health care, property services, and public services.

ELVIS
Hey -- how about this:

The Elvis Presley Tribute is this Sunday, August 19, at Rick's Tavern, 6762 Lowell Boulevard, Denver. The folks at Rick's are inviting everyone to stop by for a good time as The King of Rock 'n Roll is honored: Elvis music, costumes, and impersonators. More info about the event and The Rick Garcia Band on the website. Rick Garcia and his band will perform some of Elvis' songs - in addition to their signature blend of Tex-Mex, New Mexico, country, rock and oldies music.

That's all I got.

Later.