The Ohio State University Press announces the “Contemporary Latino Writers and Directors Series”

Frederick Luis Aldama, series editor

The Ohio State University Press proudly launches the Contemporary Latino Writers and Directors Series with Frederick Luis Aldama serving as the series editor.

Overview

The “Contemporary Latino Writers and Directors” series offers scholars the possibility of formulating an interpretive approach about a single or cluster of contemporary Latino authors (novelist, short story, poet, comic book author/artist) or directors (fiction and/or documentary). The goal of these books is to enrich our understanding of and pay critical attention to Latino authors or film directors. While there are many authors and directors we can readily identify who merit study, there are also (and in a way perhaps unforeseeable at the present time) authors and directors working today--or soon tomorrow--who will have a significant impact within Latino culture and the culture at large. Such an author or director may be the next Junot Díaz or Robert Rodriguez.

The Latino authors and directors published by the series will be assessed according to their cultural impact (present and potential), and not necessarily by the quantity of work done. Junot Díaz is a good case in point. He has published only one novel and two collections of stories, yet his impact has been huge. The same can be said of a film director like Alex Rivera who has made only one film to date, the award-winning Sleep Dealer, yet his cultural influence has been significant.

Books in the series will follow the format of a book-length essay and fall between 45,000 and 50,000 words. Each book will be organized according to major sub-headings rather than traditional chapters. They will present short, engagingly written, useful commentaries on contemporary Latino authors and film directors. While largely jargon-free, when the use of jargon is used (a short hand for a concept, for instance) the writers of the books will define it and explain its application. Theme, chronology, theoretical, or historical frameworks might be used depending on the scholar’s preference; historical, cultural, regional, even biographical information would be included where necessary. These critical studies will provide real criticism that offer readers a true understanding of either a single or series of Latino author(s) or film director (s). Each volume consists of incisive interpretive and critical commentary, historical/biographical information, and a detailed bibliography. Each book will include interviews with the author (or authors) or film director (or directors). These will not slip into hagiographies, but rather shed light on what works and what does not work according to reasoned analysis. That is, they will be interpretive and critical.

While there is no determined length to the interview section, books in the series will include interviews that do not take up more than 10,000 words. The scholar will establish the template for the interview as a last phase of the research and writing so that the questions enrich the information and analysis already presented in the main body of the book. Once again, both everything that precedes the interview and everything in the interview will aim at making the book memorable. There will be no padding. And the interviewee will be allowed to edit for clarity and eventual supplementary information.

The books in the series will be highly informative and critically interpretive in content. They will identify for a large readership the great variety of Latino authors and directors who are actively shaping Latino and mainstream culture. The series will grow with the idea that individually and collectively they will serve a wide ranging function: to make known all variety of Latino authors and directors to all variety of readers--from high school, college, to retirement.

The “Contemporary Latino Writers and Directors” series will offer accessible scholarly inquiry into one aspect (literature and film) that has become a comprehensive Latino cultural presence in the late twentieth and early twenty-first century. The series will make visible the contributions of Latino creators working in the areas of literature and film.

SUGGESTED LIST OF AUTHORS

Graphic novelists:

Joe Quesada (Cuban American)

Ivan Velez Jr. (Puerto Rican American)

Frank Espinosa (Cuban American)

Inverna Lockpez (Cuban American)

Wilfred Santiago (Puerto Rican American)

Rafael Navarro (Mexican American)

Rhode Montijo (Mexican American)

Gilbert Hernandez (Mexican American)

Mario Hernandez(Mexican American)

Jaime Hernandez(Mexican American)

Javier Hernandez(Mexican American)

Mexican Americans:

Susana Chávez-Silverman

Emma Pérez

Alma Luz Villanueva

Sheila Ortiz Taylor

Denise Chávez

Xochiquetzal Candelaria

Sesshu Foster

Alfredo Véa

Cecile Pineda

Lucha Corpi

Demetria Martinez

Monseratt Fontes

Michele Serros

Belinda Acosta

Tanya Maria Barrientos

Rudolfo Anaya

Alejandro Morales

Helena María Viramontes

Alicia Gaspar de Alba

Xyta Maya Murray

Tey Diana Rebolledo

Dagoberto Gilb

John Rechy

Salvador Plascencia

Pat Mora

Alurista

Isabella Ríos

Michael Nava

Norma Cantú

Richard Rodriguez

Cristina Ibarra

John J. Valadez

Cuban American:

Matías Montes Huidobro

Gustavo Perez Firmat

Achy Obejas

John Lantigua

Carolina Garcia-Aguilera

Elías Miguel Muñoz

Ruth Behar

Aleida Rodríguez

Ricardo Pau-Llosa

Virgil Suarez

Mirta Ojito

Ana Mendéndez

Margarita Engle

Naomi Ayala

Jack Agüeros

Cecilia Rodríguez

Eric Garcia

Zoé Valdés

Cristina García

Oscar Hijuelos

Dominican American:

Loida Maritza Perez

Rhina Espaillat

Angie Cruz

Rhina Espaillat

Angie Cruz

Julia Alvarez

Nelly Rosario

Marta Moreno Vega

Puerto Rican American:

Sandra Rodriguez Barron

Martín Espada

Irene Vilar

Sofia Quintero

Giannina Braschi

Nicholasa Mohr

Abraham Rodriguez Jr.

Carmen de Monteflores

Esmeralda Santiago

Luisita Lopez Torregrosa

Latino Americans:

Ruben Martinez (Salvadoran American)

Kathleen de Azevedo (Brazilian-American)

Marie Arana (Peruvian-American)

Daniel Alarcón (Peruvian-American)

Ariel Dorfman (Chilean American)

Héctor Tobar (Guatemalan American)

Alberto Ríos (Guatemalan American)

Sylvia Sellers-Garcia (Guatemalan American)

Francisco Goldman (Guatemalan American)

Christina Henriquez (Panamanian American)

Jaime Manrique (Colombian American)

Lilia Cobbs (Colombian American)

C. Dale Young (Latino/Asian)

Sigrid Nunez (Latino/Asian)

SUGGESTED LIST OF DIRECTORS

Carlos Ávila (Mex American)

Jesse Borrego (Mex American)

Paul Espinosa (Mex American)

Gregory Nava (Mex-American)

Lourdes Portillo (Mexican American)

Alfredo De Villa (Mex American)

Hector Galán (Mex American)

Efrain Gutierrez (Mex American)

Nancy de los Santos (Mex American)

Rick Tejada-Flores (Puerto Rican American)

Marcos Zurinaga (Puerto Rican American)

Miguel Arteta (Puerto Rican American

Marcos Zurinaga (Puerto Rican American)

Frances Negrón-Muntaner (Puerto Rican American)

Judith Escalona (Puerto Rican American)

Jacobo Morales (Puerto Rican American)

Franc Reyes (Puerto Rican American)

Linda Mendoza (Cuban American)

Sergio Giral (Cuban American)

Leon Ichaso (Cuban American)

Joe Menendez (Cuban American)

Ramón Menéndez (Cuban American)

George Romero (Cuban American)

Jessy Torrero (Dominican American)

Alfredo De Villa (Mexican American)

Gustavo Hernández Pérez (Venezuelan American)

Rodrigo García (Colombian American)

Orlando Jimenez-Leal (Cuban American)

Patricia Cardoso (Colombian-American)

ABOUT THE SERIES EDITOR:

Frederick Luis Aldama is Arts and Humanities Distinguished Professor of English at The Ohio State University, United States, where he teaches Latino/a and Latin American post-colonial literature, film, and comics, as well as narrative theory and cognitive science approaches to culture. Prof. Aldama obtained his Ph.D. from Stanford University in 1999. He received his undergraduate degree summa cum laude in English from the University of California, Berkeley in 1992. For questions about the series or wish to be considered as an author for the series, you may e-mail Prof. Aldama at aldama.1@osu.edu or aldamaf@hotmail.com. 

Staggering down las calles de Denver's Northside

by Rudy Ch. Garcia

Three Chicanos who live and practice their arts in Denver: a retired factory worker, now artist and music aficionado; a former practicing lawyer turned novelist; a formerly employed bilingual teacher who sculpts his gardens and fiction.

Thursday night we walked the blocks of what natives call the Northside. The gentry, developers and transplants have taken out much of its culture, much as they take out weeds from their yards and the characteristic architecture of the neighborhood homes to replace them with foo-foo plants and minimalist houses. So, we walk the blocks, commenting on our loss and deriding the substitutions.

The second floor apartments on 32nd & Zuni where mexicano families once could afford to live and send their niños to neighborhood schools to learn to read and write in their native language are now hundred thou condos where Spanish is much less heard, if at all. The former residents relocated to outlying areas where rent is cheaper and instruction their kids receive now all in English.

The flat-roofed buildings that once housed bars where one of our fathers and a father-in-laws drank themselves into alcoholism and exchanged stories of cómo era when they grew up in the San Luis Valley or crossed over looking for more than just cantinas with cold beer and pool tables.

The old tequila bar that served the best chorizo con huevos breakfast and where you could order obscure tequilas for less than half the price of the yuppie establishments that sit there now with no Spanish speakers to speak of and food prices that make you wish you weren't hungry. The former bar owned by relatives of a Jalisco distillery family who succumbed to a lavish purchase offer that ousted one of the best places to compose fiction on a Saturday morning.

The Anglos passing by us, wondering quien sabe qué about us, some not daring to look up from the dog they're walking nor respond to a hello, no matter that the only difference between the three of us and gringo drunks who'll later pepper the sidewalks are our physical features.

A plethora of restaurants/bars overloaded with customers with too much discretionary funds, too much searching for identity and culture in an area they helped strip of the same.

Multi-stored structures marring the skies with the bareness of concrete and glass where once stood brick homes with families, children who were sent to public, not charter or private schools, where the music of quinceañeras and birthdays formerly rang out on weekends, and now thousand dollar bikes and BMWs mutely sit on patios or out front.

The old, Chicano bar-Italian restaurant still open. Still serving cheap drinks and its neo juke box blaring oldies. A kitchen fire and fire alarm end a brief stay.

We walk the sidewalks, the three of us. Admitting some benefits of progress, though much of that is limited to one day being in a position to sell our houses for much more than we paid and then being in the position of leaving what once was.

We talk of places and times and remember-whens; we drink more, but not enough. Celebrating recent individual accomplishments; wishing each other well and future luck. We can't do the same for the old Denver Northside. The name itself has been taken from us, regurgitated as a string of truncated labels more descriptive of the money entering the area, the overpopulation of drinking places, the higher income levels of the encroaching gentry.

We had a good time anyway. Because we know more andnot simply about the history  of this area. We experienced things here that stay with us, in our artwork and literary works. We still feel it. Live it. Lamenting the changes doesn't change that.

Es todo, hoy

RudyG

Review: The Neruda Case ... and More Bits and Pieces

Review

The Neruda Case

Roberto Ampuero, translated by Carolina De Robertis

Riverhead Books (2012)

Rolando Hinojosa once told me that writers should write books, not book reviews. I eventually understood what he meant (at least, what I think he meant) and I cut back on reviews for La Bloga and other outlets. However, every once in a while I come across a book that spurs me to write a few words of praise, despite Rolando’s wise lesson, because the book is special in some way, or several ways.

The Neruda Case by Roberto Ampuero is one such book.

The Neruda Case is the first of Ampuero’s books to be translated into English, although he has long been published worldwide. He is a professor at the University of Iowa and has lived in the U.S. for years. His reluctant detective, Cayetano Brulé, is the protagonist in a series of novels that are immensely popular. Brulé is a Cuban living in Chile. Ampuero is a Chilean who has spent time in several of the countries that serve as backdrops to his stories including Cuba, East Germany, Bolivia, and Mexico, all featured settings in The Neruda Case.

Roberto Ampuero

The book literally spans the globe and decades of time. It begins in 2006 when Brulé fixates on a photograph of Pablo Neruda, which in turn launches him into remembrances of his first case. The reader then steps into the turbulent Chilean crisis of 1973. Allende’s government is on the verge of a violent collapse. The poet is on the verge of dying. But he has one last project to fulfill and he engages the young Brulé to carry it out.

Brulé lives with his activist wife in Valparaíso, although the marriage is on the rocks. He encounters the celebrated poet Neruda at a party, and eventually the two meet privately to discuss Neruda’s quest. He wants Brulé to find Doctor Bracamonte, whom Neruda had known thirty years earlier in Mexico City. Brulé assumes the doctor may be a last hope for the poet, who is suffering from prostate cancer. He doesn’t realize, of course, that he has not been told the entire story and that he is about to embark on an adventure that will throw him into the midst of the Cold War and the international tensions that existed when capitalism and socialism competed for hegemony in Europe, Latin American and Asia. And only later, as he tracks down clues around the world, does he understand that his search is for something much more precious and personal to Neruda than the doctor’s expertise.

Salvador Allende and Pablo Neruda

But the book is not a political diatribe. Far from it. This is a fast-moving thriller with a sprawling tableau, satisfying doses of suspense, and three-dimensional characters. Famous and infamous historical figures dot the literary landscape including Salvador Allende, who appears in a wonderful scene with Neruda that dramatizes the last time the two men saw each other. Brulé’s odyssey brings him in contact with several of Neruda’s mistresses, writers, poets and artists of the culturally fertile seventies, Che Guevara’s girlfriend, cold-blooded Stasi agents from East Germany, the jazz musician Paquito D’Rivera, and even the play Life of Galileo by Bertolt Brecht has a role in the plot.

Georges Simenon

That play is a signal for one of Ampuero’s themes. Brecht’s drama centers on Galileo’s torment when he sacrificed his scientific and philosophical views in order to survive persecution. In a sense, Galileo created another version of himself. At one point in the book Neruda comments how he has re-manufactured himself several times, played several different parts over the course of his life, and it is almost too obvious when Neruda tells Brulé that he should create another persona for himself, that of a detective. Neruda, the poet, the artist-creator, instructs Brulé to use the mystery fiction of the great Georges Simenon as detective training manuals. Neruda believes that Simenon's illustrious detective, Maigret, can transform the young Brulé into the investigator that Neruda needs at that particular time of his life. In this way, fiction and reality intermingle, art and life compensate one another, and the reader is faced with a multi-layered mystery that satisfies on all levels.

One of the main aspects of the book is Ampuero’s fictional glimpse into the complicated, contradictory, and very human character of Pablo Neruda. The five chapters are named after women who played key roles in the poet’s life. Neruda’s womanizing and, frankly, scandalous treatment of his wives and mistresses are essential to the story the author writes. But so, too, are the poet’s artistic accomplishments, his iconic role in Chilean history, and his impact on all those who came into contact with him. 

Ampuero admitted to an interviewer that Neruda made a powerful impression on him when he was a child and lived in the same neighborhood as the poet. He went on to say:

“I wrote my novel about Neruda, staying true to the actual history of Chile between 1970 and 1973, because I admire him as a poet, because I was curious about him as a neighbor, and because his personal life intersected with crucial moments of 20th-century history.

“But I had another, powerful reason for writing my novel. Sheltered by the license of fiction, I strove to portray the Neruda of flesh and blood, the real human being with his grandeur and meanness, loyalties and betrayals, certainties and doubts—the poet who could love passionately and at the same time leave everything to embark on a new affair, a more feverish and impassioned one, that would allow him to write better poetry. Neruda was a towering poet, a sharp politician, a human being who searched tirelessly for love, and a man who enjoyed the pleasures of bourgeois life. He contradicted himself. It isn’t easy to write a novel that captures the real human being, as Neruda’s fame is so solid and universal that written works about him tend toward the apologetic and adulatory, keeping him on a pedestal. I believe that both his genius as an artist and his authentic side as a man spring from his complex spirit, his light and shadow, and the passion of his human condition.”

You can read the entire interview here.

The quibbles I have with the book relate to a few glitches that probably need to be explained by the translator. Overall, the prose is excellent and one of the author’s main talents is that he never intrudes into the story that is acted out by his characters. But some sentences are awkward and seem out of place. Certain passages appear to be repeated, or at least the narrative thrust of these passages show up more than once. But, these are minor.  I recommend The Neruda Case and eagerly anticipate more from Roberto Ampuero. 

Bits and Pieces

BRACERO PROGRAM -- HISTORIC GUEST LABOR PROGRAM BETWEEN U.S. AND MEXICO FEATURED IN SMITHSONIAN EXHIBIT AT REGIS UNIVERSITY 

[from Regis University website]

In addition to viewing one of the most interesting and relevant exhibits about the labor guest worker programs between the United States and Mexico, the orchestrator behind Regis University’s two-month hosting of the historic Smithsonian exhibit Bracero Program wants visitors to the exhibit to gain an understanding of the human face behind the Bracero Program.

Regis University, Colorado’s only Jesuit Catholic university, is hosting the Smithsonian Institution’s travelling exhibit called Bittersweet Harvest: The Bracero Program, 1942-1964, through Oct. 28 in the University’s Dayton Memorial Library.

“The Bracero exhibit is intriguing because of the individual stories that comprise it,” said Nicki Gonzales, assistant professor of history at Regis University and the individual orchestrating the exhibit at the University’s North Denver (Lowell) campus “I want people to recognize that each laborer had a story that was just as rich and just as important as the observer’s. I would like those who view the exhibit to come away with a more complete picture of our nation’s history and an appreciation for the contributions that Mexicans have made. The Bracero history is a transnational story, as is much of our history.”

Begun in 1942 as a temporary war measure to address labor needs in agriculture and the railroads, the Bracero Program eventually become the largest guest worker program in U.S. history. Small farmers, large growers, and farm associations in California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Arkansas, and 23 other states hired Mexican Braceros to provide manpower during peak harvest and cultivation times. By the time the program was canceled in 1964, an estimated 4.6 million contracts had been awarded. 

Bittersweet Harvest, a new bilingual exhibition organized by the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History and circulated by SITES, examines the experiences of Bracero workers and their families, providing rich insight into Mexican American history and historical background to today’s debates on guest worker programs.

Consisting of 15 freestanding, illustrated banners, the exhibition combines recent scholarship, photographs from the Smithsonian’s collection, and audio excerpts from oral histories contributed by former contract workers.

Gonzales’s extensive background in history is evident as she discusses in almost reverent tones the individual stories that comprise the Bracero exhibit and the many questions raised by the exhibit.

“On one hand, you have the US desperate for labor during and after WWII, and on the other, you have a group of men who make the decision to leave their homes and families in Mexico for opportunity in the US,” Gonzales explained. “The individual stories behind that decision are fascinating...what were their lives like prior to leaving, what did they give up in making the decision to leave, what were their experiences like in the US--with all of the challenges that brought: racism, classism, exploitation, broken promises...yet, they were able to create a culture, to survive, and to send money home....all meanwhile aiding the American economic machine, contributing in vital ways to our country's victory in WWII...until the mid-1960s, when America would pass a landmark immigration law, partly in response to the results of the Bracero program. And, finally, the question of what effects did their decision to leave Mexico as a Bracero have on the rest of their lives...and the lives of their children and grandchildren?”

In addition to the exhibit, Regis University will sponsoring numerous additional activities in conjunction with the exhibit. Among those are a Bracero Program Oral History Project, a Romero Troupe Theater performance and actor talk-back, and a labor history panel featuring four professors and activists.

The Bracero Program Oral History Project includes students and faculty who are gathering oral histories from former Braceros and their family members. These interviews, as well as any artifacts will be exhibited near the Smithsonian exhibit. These video interviews will be stored in the archives of Regis University's Center for the Study of War Experience, a nationally-recognized archive of oral histories and artifacts related to war-time experiences. 

The Romero Theater Troupe will perform a short play on the history of the Bracero program through the Bracero laborers' experiences. A panel of speakers will follow the performance. The labor history academic panel is expected to feature experts presenting their work on the Bracero Program and related topics. Several additional supporting events will be conducted during the next two months in conjunction with the exhibit at Regis University.

For more information, on the exhibit or to participate in one of the projects, contact Gonzales at ngonzale@regis.edu or Sonia Del Real at sdelreal@regis.edu.

James Luna Presents Making Do: Performance and Installation Premiere

Wednesday, October 3 or Friday, October 5 7:00 p.m.

Performance artist James Luna premieres his unique art installation and performance piece, Making Do, created specifically for a limited engagement at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science.

This special premiere includes a performance by Luna, a chance to view the installation, and an artist’s reception.

In Making Do, Luna explores a “survival skill” developed by his California Indian peoples to endure in a post-contact world. Luna conveys how Indians cleverly “made do” in hopes of maintaining an Indian life while coming to grips with the loss of the “free” lifestyle they once lived.

Luna, a Pooyukitchchum/Ipai native, is a world-renowned performer and artist who has produced a variety of artworks illustrating his artistic, social, and political commentary.


$15/member, $18/nonmember
Ricketson Auditorium

Cash bar reception to follow.

Reservations are required as space is limited. Call 303.370.6000 (M-F, 9-5) or click here to purchase tickets online.

Scholastic Art & Writing Awards

 State Out of the Union at the Tattered Cover

State Out of the Union: Arizona and the Final Showdown Over the American Dream  

Jeff Biggers

Oct 11 2012 7:30 pm Colfax Avenue

[from The Tattered Cover website]

Days after President Obama beseeched his fellow lawmakers in the State of the Union ‘to come together as a people, Republicans, Democrats, Independents,” and “find common ground, even as we're having some very vigorous debates,” the extraordinary effect of Arizona’s sagebrush rebellion had already rippled across the country.

In the alarming and fascinating State Out of The Union, award-winning author Jeff Biggers shows how the Arizonification of America is in full swing. More than 25 state legislatures have already introduced copycat anti-immigration bills of Arizona’s controversial SB 1070. But immigration reform is just the opening salvo—in Arizona, and for the 2012 elections.

With one of the most radical Tea Party factions in control of its legislature, Arizona and its growing bevy of wingnut politicians have not only dislodged Sarah Palin as one of the most popular jokes on late night TV shows, but have set in motion one of the most alarming challenges to federal authority in history. The legislature has passed several bills challenging federal authority on gun laws, Medicaid, and the rights of undocumented children to attend school or go to the emergency room. One bill debated in the state congress proposed prohibiting "courts from considering international law or legal percepts of other nations or cultures when making judicial decisions." Another bill required federal environmental inspectors to register with the sheriff whenever its representatives enter one of Arizona's fifteen counties. One Forbes reporter wrote that the bill could be summed up in three words: ”Stay outta Arizona.” As a precursor to the 2012 election, Arizona defiantly unveiled its vision of a Tea Party America—that may be our future.

About the Author

---

Jeff Biggers is the American Book Award-winning of The United States of Appalachia, and In the Sierra Madre. He has worked as a writer, radio correspondent and educator across the United States, Europe, India and Mexico. His award-winning stories have appeared on National Public Radio, Public Radio International and in numerous magazines and newspapers, including The Washington Post, The Nation, The Atlantic Monthly, Salon, among others. He splits his time between Tucson and Illinois. His website is: www.jeffbiggers.com

Pueblo Chile and Frijoles Festival 

Saturday, September 22, 2012 - 10:00am - Sunday, September 23, 2012 - 4:00pmThis annual event set up by the Greater Pueblo Chamber of Commerce features entertainment tents, vendors, and of course, roasting chiles and produce for sale. Cost: $2 entry fee for festival. During the Festival the museum will have the popular Pony Rides along with free admission to the trading post featuring living history presentations and the Native Thundering Voices Community featuring singing, dancing and drumming. The Pueblo Herb Society, Pride City Quilt Guild and Pueblo Handweavers Guild will also demonstrate their crafts. The museum’s galleries will be open with admission at just $1 per person. For more information: 719.583.0453.

El Pueblo History Museum Information
301 North Union
Pueblo, CO 81003

Later.

Got Libros?

Melinda Palacio

Melinda Palacio, Aurora Anaya Cerda, and Nora Comstock at the 14th International Latino Book Awards

La Bloga will be reporting from La Casa Azul Bookstore in Nueva York all week. I'll be in town for all the events, including the Brooklyn Book Festival Saturday, September 23 and a book signing at the booth hosted by La Casa Azul Bookstore and Las Comadres, Booth # 122. Confirmed authors include: Esmeralda Santiago, Charles Rice-Gonzalez, John Parra, Reyna Grande, Sandra Guzman, Toni Plummer, Melinda Palacio, Alberto Ferreras, Ana Arelys Cruz Cabrera, Carlos Andres Gomez, David Unger, Grece Flores Hughes, Jaime Manrique, Lucrecia Guerrero, and Patricia Engel.  

My first visit to New York as an author brought a special surprise, a win of the Mariposa Award for Best First Book for my novel, Ocotillo Dreams. I had such a grand time seeing the sights and mingling with New Yorkers that, after the June ceremony at the Instituto Cervantes, I kept saying,  'I wish I can come back to New York soon'. Immediately, my wish was granted when Adriana Dominguez invited me to join the Las Comadres booth at the Brooklyn Book Festival and the Las Comadres y Compadres Writers Conference, Saturday October 6,held at Medgar Evers College, CUNY, Brooklyn.

The conference features authors, agents, editors, and publishers, but there will also be a poetry panel, moderated by Rich Villar, Executive Director of Acentos, from 11:00 -11-50. Published poets discuss the poetry business and how to see your poems in print. Panelists include Melinda Palacio, Emanuel Xavier, and Lila Zemborain. Register for the conference here.

Melinda and Toni Margarita (find us at the Brooklyn Book Festival Saturday, Sept. 23 at noon, booth 122)

For those of you playing the Where in the World is Melinda postcard contest on facebook, a big hint, I will be in New York this week and for two days in October. See if you're the first to identify where I'm at and I will write a postcard to you and drop it in the US mail.

The New York festivities begin tonight at La Casa Azul:

Book Launch Party for   

Count on Me: Tales of Sisterhoods and Fierce Friendships
Thursday September 20, 6:00pm - 8:00pm  

Edited by Adriana V. López, this collection of stories features twelve prominent Latino authors who reveal how friendships have helped them to overcome difficult moments in their lives.

Confirmed authors:

Esmeralda Santiago, Daisy Martínez, Sofia Quintero, Michelle Herrera Mulligan and Adriana V. López.

Free event, RSVP required: rsvp.lacasaazul@gmail.com 

50 for Freedom (This event is also happening nationwide, including Tia Chucha's in Sylmar from 5pm to 10 pm)

Friday September 21, 6:00pm - 8:00pm 
New York City's Latino literary community will converge to participate in "50 for Freedom of Speech," a national day of action protesting the de facto banning of Latino literature in the state of Arizona (with similar legislation poised to pass in other states as a result). 
Reading by banned Puerto Rican author and award-winning poet Martín Espada and readings of other banned book texts by some of New York City's top Latino academic, literary and spoken word talent.

Organized by: Librotraficante, Sangre Viva Arts Alliance and Acentos, Latino Rebels and La Casa Azul Bookstore, 143 E. 103rd street,  New York, New York.

Free event, RSVP required: rsvp.lacasaazul@gmail.com

Storytelling & Book Signing by John Parra, Saturday September 22, 12:00pm - 1:00pm.   

He may be a New Yorker now, but Parra is from Santa Barbara and Goleta, a fellow California native. He is a wonderful artist and I own my personal copy of My Name Is Gabriela. I'm looking forward to meeting the artist behind children's titles including: Gracias/Thanks, Waiting for the Biblioburro, P is for Piñata, and My Name is Gabriela.

   

Reading of The Distance Between Us

by Reyna Grande  

Tuesday September 25 6:00pm - 7:30pm  

You've read all about her on La Bloga, the L.A. Times, Slate, Christian Science Monitor, you name it. New yorkers can enjoy hearing Reyna Grande's story at La Casa Azul.

Free event, RSVP required: rsvp.lacasaazul@gmail.com 

Reading with Sergio Troncoso & Renato Rosaldo    

Thursday September 27, 6:00 - 8:00pm 

Sergio Troncoso debates and challenges us on the mystery of familias, how they determine our identity and how we break free of them, from fatherhood to interfaith marriage to educating our children. From Tucson to the Philippines, from Palo Alto to Manhattan, these readable poems tell of illness and racism, love and death-all in vivid tones. Savor these poems, slowly, what you inbibe will engage and enrich you.

Free event, RSVP required: rsvp.lacasaazul@gmail.com 

Here's some excellent news...

PEN Oakland officially announced the winners of the PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Awards. I'm honored to see Ocotillo Dreams make the list.

PEN OAKLAND

" The Blue Collar PEN" The New York Times

Announces

22st Annual 2012 Literary Awards

Saturday, December 1, 2012, 2 PM – 5 PM

(Oakland , CA), September 17, 2012  --- The 22nd Annual PEN Oakland-Josephine Miles National Literary Awards will take place on Saturday, December 1, 2012, at the Oakland Public Library, Rockridge Branch, 5366 College Avenue from 2 to 5 p.m. The ceremony is free and open to the public, and will be followed by a reception and book signings.   PEN Oakland , founded in 1989, is a chapter of PEN International, founded in 1921. Dubbed "the blue collar PEN" by the New York Times, PEN Oakland annually sponsors the PEN Oakland-Josephine Miles Book Awards, named for the late poet and faculty member of U.C. Berkeley's English Department. This year marks the 22st anniversary of the awards.  Each year PEN Oakland presents an award to outstanding book titles published in the previous year. The Awards were created twenty years ago to honor writers of exceptional works often not acknowledged by the mainstream literary community.  Judged by respected writers, the awards honor books that both reflect a multi-cultural or marginalized viewpoint and represent the highest standards of literature.

THE 2012 PEN OAKLAND-JOSEPHINE MILES LITERARY AWARD WINNERS

 
 

Ocotillo Dreams  by Melinda Palacio.

Bilingual Review Press. (novel)

The Armageddon of Funk by Michael Warr.

Tia Chucha Press. (poetry)

Solitude of Five Moons  by Aurora Harris.

Broadside Press/University of Detroit Mercy Press. (poetry)

La Negra y Blanca: Fugue & Commentary by Deena Metzger.

Hand to Hand Press. (novel)

Fug You  by Ed Sanders.

Da Capo Press. (memoir)   

Sugar Zone by Mary Mackey.

Marsh Hawk Press (poetry)

Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward.

Bloomsbury. (novel)

CENSORSHIP AND LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARDS

Alexander Cockburn is the winner of the 2012 Censorship Award.

Q.R. Hand will receive the 2012 Lifetime Achievement Award.

Countdown to Publication:

ONE MONTH

How Fire Is a Story, Waiting (Tia Chucha Press, Fall 2012)

"Palacio’s work is expansive, physical, funeral-wet, elevated, funny, existential, woman-story, jazzy and Pachukona. She is unafraid to dive head-on into questions of death, loss and self. Into the fiery entwined spikes of father-daughter estrangements, mother-daughter intimacies and most of all, she is “insomniac” bold in this volume as an ongoing sequence on self.  Melinda’s collection has Bop and “swagger,” lingo, song, denuncia, compassion and wild, unexpected turns– all the key ingredients and hard-won practices of a poet (and shaman) in command of her powers.  I don’t think there is anything like this book. ¡Brillantissima!"

- Juan Felipe Herrera