Latino Writers @ AWP Conference

Tianguis / Proyecto Latina's very own Irasema Gonzalez will be on the move this February doing the magic at this year's AWP conference held in Chicago. We hope you will come out and support some of these events. You can register for the conference at http://www.awpwriter.org

Thursday, February 12, 2009 @ 1:30 p.m.

Building, Breaking, Rebuilding: Six Chicago Literary Landscapers (Ellen Placey Wadey, Erin Teegarden, Krista Franklin, Joel Craig, Jennifer Karmin, Irasema Gonzalez) We are the bold sluggers who run Chicago's independent reading series. Set vividly against the established grid, we build literary communities in neighborhoods from the ground up. How are we thriving in the face of our challenges? Less like a panel and more like a virtual show-and-tell, organizers from a diverse group of popular, D-I-Y reading serieses discuss building, breaking from, and rebuilding Chicago's literary landscape.

Thursday, February 12, 2009 @ 6 p.m.
Con Tinta Celebration
An evening to celebrate the Chicano/Latino literary community. This year's Con Tinta Award recipient is Carlos Cortez, artist, poet, printmaker, photographer, songwriter and lifelong political activist. Special recognition will also be made to Patti Hartmann, editor of Camino del Sol Series at the University of Arizona Press. Literary tributes to Carlos Cortez will be made by Carlos Cumpian, Lisa Alvarado, and Ray Gonzalez. Held at COCO Restaurant, 2723 W. Divison, Chicago, IL. Free. Open buffet and cash bar.

Friday, February 13, 2009, 6 to 7:30 p.m.
Palabra Pura, Special Edition: One Poem Festival
Following up on the multi-voiced reading hosted by ACENTOS in NYC last year during AWP, the Guild Complex, Letras Latinas, and Poetry Magazine will be hosting a "One Poem Festival" featuring an ample roster of Latino and Latina poets from Chicago and out of town, including: Lisa Alvarado, Carlos Cumpian, Silvia Curbelo, Gina Franco, Gabe Gomez, Irasema Gonzalez, Maurice Kilwein Guevara, Gabriela Jauregui, Olivia Maciel, Carl Marcum, Valerie Martínez, Orlando Ricardo Menes, Achy Obejas, Daniel A. Olivas, Johanny Vasquez Paz, Paul Martinez Pompa, Linda Rodríguez, Jacob Saenz, Jorge Sánchez, Juan Manuel Sanchez Rich Villar. Held at Jazz Showcase, 47 W. Polk St. Chicago, IL.

Palabra Pura - October

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 15
PALABRA PURA
FRANCES TREVINO and TONY del VALLE
@ Decima Musa, 1901 S. Loomis, Chicago (Pilsen neighborhood)
Reading begins at 7:30 p.m.
Free admission. All ages. Books for sale.

Frances Treviño de Santos was first published by Pecan Grove Press in 1999 in a chapbook Mama & Other Tragedies. That same year, she was a fellow for the National Endowment for the Humanities for integrating U.S. Latino Literature in the secondary classroom. She is the recipient of the 2000 Premió Poesía Tejana Award for The Laughter of Doves, which was published through Wings Press. In 2001 she received a grant from the Alfredo Cisneros del Moral Foundation. Her current book of poems, Cayetana, is also published by Wings Press. From 1999-2002, she was a member of "Women of Ill-Repute: Refute!" - a performance group that deconstructed issues of culture and identity. Treviño de Santos teaches British Literature to high school students for the San Antonio Independent School district.

Tony del Valle is a published writer of fiction, creative non-fiction, and poetry. For the past thirty years he performed as a singer, pianist and guitarist in a touring orchestra and recorded several albums of Latin music as composer, arranger, songwriter, and pianist. He also has taught music and visual arts in the Humboldt Park community where he painted various murals. He is currently seeking to publish a novel entitled The Royal Road, part of which has appeared in Chicago West Side Stories. Del Valle has presented his fiction, poetry, research, and music performances at various conferences, workshops and community events, and he continues his work as a professor of English.

PALABRA PURA - XAVIER & IRASEMA

Palabra Pura Series: Emanuel Xavier and Irasema González
Start: Wednesday, July 16, 2008 - 7:00pm

Time: Reading starts at 7:00 PM PM
Cost: Free admission.
Location: Center on Halsted, Chicago's LGBT Community Center, 3656 N. Halsted, Chicago


Emanuel Xavier is author of the poetry collection Americano, editor of Bullets & Butterflies: queer spoken word poetry and Mariposas: an anthology of modern queer Latino poetry. He has been featured on Russell Simmons presents Def Poetry on HBO, appeared as guest host of PBS's In The Life and co-starred on MTV LOGO's feature film, The Ski Trip.He most recently selected finalists for Best Gay Erotica 2008 and is currently working on a new poetry collection and a reprint of his fiction novel, Christ like . He is recipient of the Marsha A. Gomez Cultural Heritage Award, a NYC Council Citation and the Outstanding Excellence in Performance Arts Award from the World Pride Power conference.

Emanuel Xavier es el autor de la coleccion de poesia Americano, editor de Bullets and Butterflies:queer spoken word poetry and Mariposas:an anthology of modern queer Latino poetry. Emanuel ha sido destacado en Russell Simmons presents Def Poetry en HBO, ha sido presentado como invitado en In the Life en PBS y ha actuado en el largometraje The Ski Trip de MTV LOGO. Muy recientemente ha seleccionado los finalistas para Best Gay Erotica 2008 y actualmente esta trabajando en una nueva coleccion de poesia y una reedicion de su novela de ficcion Christ like. Emanuel ha recibido el premio Marsha A Gomez Cultural Heritage Award, una mencion en NYC Council y el premio Outstanding Excellence in Performance Arts de la conferencia World Pride Power.


Irasema González After working as a cubicle drone and toiling away vainly under bad fluorescent lights and glass ceilings Irasema Gonzalez combusted. The mid-twenties melt-down that followed resulted in extraordinary things: she quit her job, awarded herself a sabbatical, and ultimately opened Tianguis, the bookstore she always longed to walk into. She is a founding member of the Proyecto Latina reading series, a collaborative between Tianguis Books, Teatro Luna and Mariposa Atomica Ink. Her poems appeared in Between the Heart and the Land, an anthology by March Abrazo Press featuring Midwestern Latina poets. She is a graduate of Columbia College Chicago where she earned a B.A. in journalism and creative writing. She resides in Little Village with her husband and two cats.

Cervantes and Gonzalez at Palabra Pura

Cervantes and Gonzalez at Palabra Pura

Wednesday, APRIL 16 -- PALABRA PURA
LORNA DEE CERVANTES and RIGOBERTO GONZALEZ
Center on Halsted, 3656 N. Halsted, Chicago
Doors open at 6:00 p.m. Reading begins at 7:00 p.m.
Free admission. Books for sale. Authors will be available for signing.

In honor of National Poetry Month, two internationally renowned poets -- Lorna Dee Cervantes and Rigoberto González -- will read for Palabra Para at the Center on Halsted.

A fifth-generation Californian of Mexican and Native American (Chumash) heritage, Lorna Dee Cervantes has been a pivotal figure throughout the Chicano literary movement. Her poetry has appeared in nearly 200 anthologies and textbooks, and she has been the recipient of many honors, including an NEA fellowship, a Lila Wallace-Readers Digest Award and a Pulitzer nomination for her book DRIVE: The First Quartet. She lives and teaches in San Francisco, California.

Rigoberto González is the author of seven books, most recently of the memoir, Butterfly Boy: Memories of a Chicano Mariposa, winner of the American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation. A story collection, Men without Bliss, is forthcoming. The recipient of Guggenheim and NEA fellowships, and of various international artist residencies, he writes a book column for the El Paso Times of Texas. He lives in New York City and is Associate Professor of English at Rutgers University/Newark.