“How to Date a Flying Mexican” comes to the New Short Fiction Series, August 31, in a live streamed performance

The New Short Fiction Series, Los Angeles' longest running spoken word series, presents selections from How To Date A Flying Mexican: New and Collected Stories (University of Nevada Press) by Daniel A. Olivas, Wednesday, August 31, on Crowdcast. This live streamed performance stars host and spoken word artist Sally Shore, with guest cast Holger Moncada Jr. (Promised Land, Penny Dreadful: City of Angels) and Jill Remez (The Neighborhood, The Bold and the Beautiful). 

Performance stream begins at 7:00 p.m. Tickets are $12.00 advance purchase, $20 day of stream. For tickets and program information, visit https://www.crowdcast.io/e/how-to-date-a-flying/register.

Praise for How to Date a Flying Mexican

"How to Date a Flying Mexican is a beautifully realized work that comes out of the depths of the Mexican and Mexican American cultural experience."

    —Michael Nava, Los Angeles Review of Books

"Throughout all of his stories, there are strong Chicano characters, who embody tales that range from the laugh-out-loud funny to the heartbreaking. A timely retrospective from an important voice in Latinx literature."

    —Wendy J. Fox, BuzzFeed

"Prompted by tragedy—the death of his father and the pandemic—Olivas revisits decades of writing to produce this collection of new and previously published stories. Olivas’s work is surreal, dystopian, critical, and introspective, ultimately moving into contemporary political rhetoric."

    —Alta Journal

“Daniel Olivas loves to tell stories and his writing reflects that joy. Every story is told with a wink and a smile, encouraging you to follow along for the ride.”

    —Maceo Montoya, associate professor of Chicano/a Studies, University of California, Davis, and author of Preparatory Notes for Future Masterpieces

“From gritty realism to mythic and sci-fi speculative, Olivas dishes up an exquisite feast of short fictions filled to the brim with small and outsized everyday struggles—and failures.”

    —Frederick Luis Aldama, award winning author and Jacob & Frances Sanger Mossiker Chair in the Humanities at UT Austin 

 “This kinetic new collection of stories is exuberant and poignant, filled with the homegrown details of Latinx life as well as a kind of cheerful, saucy magic.”

     —Yxta Maya Murray, law professor, Loyola Law School and author of The World Doesn’t Work that Way, but It Could: Stories

“How to Date a Flying Mexican” comes to LibroMobile on April 30

 

LibroMobile Virtually Presents How to Date a Flying Mexican: New and Collected Stories (University of Nevada Press) by Daniel A. Olivas. The presentation will include a discussion with the author of his new short-story collection and audience participation with Q&A. His new book is a collection of stories derived from Chicano and Mexican culture but ranging through fascinating literary worlds of magical realism, fairy tales, fables, and dystopian futures. The characters confront—both directly and obliquely—questions of morality, justice, and self-determination.

Note that April 30 is also Independent Bookstore Day, so what better way to celebrate than to attend an event sponsored by an independent bookstore like LibroMobile?

This is a FREE event but remember to register to save your spot! Visit this link for details.

PRAISE FOR HOW TO DATE A FLYING MEXICAN

Featured in Poets & Writers' Page One roundup of New and Newsworthy Books.

"His new collection of short fiction ... is at turns comic and tragic, and perhaps most poignant when it is both. Employing a range of genres and modes including dystopian science fiction, magical realism, and parable, Olivas uses a whimsical hand to tug at deeper truths about identity and society." —David Nilsen, On the Seawall

"How to Date a Flying Mexican is a beautifully realized work that comes out of the depths of the Mexican and Mexican American cultural experience." —Michael Nava, Los Angeles Review of Books

"Throughout all of his stories, there are strong Chicano characters, who embody tales that range from the laugh-out-loud funny to the heartbreaking. A timely retrospective from an important voice in Latinx literature." —Wendy J. Fox, BuzzFeed

"Prompted by tragedy—the death of his father and the pandemic—Olivas revisits decades of writing to produce this collection of new and previously published stories. Olivas’s work is surreal, dystopian, critical, and introspective, ultimately moving into contemporary political rhetoric." —Alta Journal

ABOUT LIBROMOBILE

LibroMobile Arts Cooperative (LMAC) is a small sized, hybrid nonprofit organization established in 2016 by local author Sarah Rafael García in Santa Ana, California. It was initiated through support from its fiscal agent Red Salmon Arts, a partner hybrid nonprofit organization based in Austin, Texas, and a five thousand dollar Investing in the Arts Grant by the City of Santa Ana. Although started with a minimal amount of funding, the hybrid nonprofit organization serves as the only literary arts cultural center for approximately 300K+ residents in the City of Santa Ana of which 80% are Latina/o/x as part of Orange County that is 60% people of color.

Over the first two years, LMAC tended the community as a curbside vendor selling books and hosting free literary readings and workshops via partnerships with established art spaces, local businesses, national literary grants to pay writers, and special public events. Since 2017, it has been housed at two different brick-and-mortar venues: the first being a public stairway that served as a temporary space for 11 months funded by a patron and the second a 190sqft warehouse in downtown Santa Ana that has consisted of annual lease renewals since January 2018 paid by profits. LMAC continues to be mobile while sustaining general operating costs at the 190 sq. ft. warehouse space. One organizational goal is to reinvest profits into the local artists of color and business economy. Over the years LMAC has fulfilled García’s mission of “cultivating diversity through literature and the arts” to the residents of Santa Ana and Orange County. Today (2021), LMAC is focusing more than ever on audience engagement and book sales to increase assets, while seeking to expand its reach beyond the city as an established BIPOC-led cultural center in Orange County and institute a new mission statement.

"How to Date a Flying Mexican" comes to Los Angeles Mission College on March 26

DANIEL A. OLIVAS in conversation with DR. JOSÉ PAEZ

In a freewheeling discussion, this live event will explore Daniel A. Olivas’s newest book, How to Date a Flying Mexican: New and Collected Stories (University of Nevada Press). This short-story collection is deeply rooted in Chicano and Mexican culture and the literary worlds of magical realism, fairy tales, fables, and dystopian futures. The characters confront—both directly and obliquely—questions of morality, justice, and self-determination.

Praise for How to Date a Flying Mexican

"This deeply textured, sensual collection more than accomplishes Olivas’s self-proclaimed task of rendering the beauty and complexity of Mexican and Mexican American culture in its fabulist, folkloric stories." —Michael Nava, Los Angeles Review of Books

"Throughout all of his stories, there are strong Chicano characters, who embody tales that range from the laugh-out-loud funny to the heartbreaking. A timely retrospective from an important voice in Latinx literature." —Wendy J. Fox, BuzzFeed

"Prompted by tragedy—the death of his father and the pandemic—Olivas revisits decades of writing to produce this collection of new and previously published stories. Olivas’s work is surreal, dystopian, critical, and introspective, ultimately moving into contemporary political rhetoric." —Alta Journal

***

This event is sponsored by

Tía Chucha’s Centro Cultural & Bookstore

and 

Los Angeles Mission College

Join us February 23 for the virtual book launch of the latest book from Daniel A. Olivas, “How to Date a Flying Mexican: New and Collected Stories”

 

VROMAN'S LIVE PRESENTS DANIEL A. OLIVAS,

IN CONVERSATION WITH PROFESSOR ÁLVARO HUERTA,

DISCUSSES HOW TO DATE A FLYING MEXICAN

DATE: FEBRUARY 23, 2022

TIME: 6:00 P.M.

This is a virtual event and will take place on Crowdcast
Register for FREE ahead of time to save your spot and get an email reminder!

EVENT LINK FOR REGISTRATION

During the pandemic and in the wake of his father's death, Daniel A. Olivas set upon the task of reviewing almost 25 years' worth of his short stories that had been published in various collections or as parts of novels. Our strange times seemed to call for this type of introspection and examination. He found that many of his narratives fell within the world of magic, fairy tales, fables, and dystopian futures. This review also revealed that many of his fictions confronted—either directly or obliquely—questions of morality, justice, and self-determination while being deeply steeped in Chicano and Mexican culture. Olivas decided to choose his favorite tales from the many scores of stories that populated his published works. He added to the mix two recent stories—one dystopian, the other magical--both of which confront the last administration's anti-immigrant rhetoric and policies.

The result is How to Date a Flying Mexican: New and Collected Stories (University of Nevada Press). Though his books have been taught in colleges and high schools across the country for over two decades, this collection brings together some of his most unforgettable strange tales that will be enjoyed, again, by his fans, and anew for readers who have not, as yet, experienced Olivas's distinct—and very Chicano—fiction. A literary critic once called Olivas a "literary marvel." These stories, collectively, offer ample support for this declaration.

Praise for How to Date a Flying Mexican

Featured by Poets & Writers magazine as a new and newsworthy book.

“Prompted by tragedy—the death of his father and the pandemic—Olivas revisits decades of writing to produce this collection of new and previously published stories. Olivas’s work is surreal, dystopian, critical, and introspective, ultimately moving into contemporary political rhetoric.”
—Alta Journal

“Throughout all of his stories, there are strong Chicano characters, who embody tales that range from the laugh-out-loud funny to the heartbreaking. A timely retrospective from an important voice in Latinx literature.”

—Wendy J. Fox, BuzzFeed 

“Daniel Olivas loves to tell stories and his writing reflects that joy. Every story is told with a wink and a smile, encouraging you to follow along for the ride. His humor not only brings levity to matters of life, death, and human treachery, but it is also a stylistic choice that Olivas has mastered. These stories aren’t so much about the interiority of its characters, but about the mythical, magical mundanity of our lives—Olivas’s style perfectly expresses this contradiction.”  
—Maceo Montoya, associate professor of Chicano/a Studies, University of California, Davis, and author of Preparatory Notes for Future Masterpieces

“From gritty realism to mythic and sci-fi speculative, Olivas dishes up an exquisite feast of short fictions filled to the brim with small and outsized everyday struggles—and failures. Through it all, we feel the mischievous wink and wry smile twinkle of an author whose . . . skills clear new space for us to breathe again in the richness of Latinx ways of life.”
—Frederick Luis Aldama, award winning author and Jacob & Frances Sanger Mossiker Chair in the Humanities at University of Texas, Austin 

“This kinetic new collection of stories is exuberant and poignant, filled with the homegrown details of Latinx life as well as a kind of cheerful, saucy magic.”
—Yxta Maya Murray, law professor, Loyola Law School and author of The World Doesn’t Work that Way, but It Could: Stories

“Olivas has the voice of both an ancient and modern storyteller. He is very deft and sure with language. The stories make a significant contribute to the Latinx community and beyond.”
—David Kranes, professor emeritus of English, University of Utah, and author of Keno Runner, Abracadabra, and Performance Art: Stories

***

If you can’t make the Vroman’s Bookstore event, visit my events page for other opportunities including a virtual event at Skylight Books on February 26 where I will be in conversation with writer and educator, Lorinda Toledo. You may register for this Skylight Books event here.

After I Saw That Wall, I Read the Book

Review: Carolina Rivera Escamilla ...after... Los Angeles: World Stage Press, 2015.  

Michael Sedano

 

 

I’ve found many a delightful book through what I called “guided serendipity.” In the library, for example, you can discover a new author by pulling something off the New Books shelves if the spine or dustjacket catches your eye. That’s how I came across Carolina Rivera Escamilla’s 2015 short story collection, …After…, through guided serendipity.

 

I was getting a guided tour of Rhett Beavers’ Echo Park hillsides when a bright mural on a wall that is built to the cobbled street makes me think we’re strolling some exotic hillside hamlet in Tuscany. That transcendent moment gets magnified by the mural’s undulating curtain running parallel to street grade, seemingly floating figures, occupied in their own world, stand with their backs to the strolling photographer. I post the foto on Facebook and that’s the serendipity part.

 

Alfredo de Batuc knows exactly where Rhett and I were walking. On Facebook, de Batuc posts, “This beautiful mural is by my friend Rafael Escamilla on his sister the writer Carolina Rivera's casa.”

 

A writer. That wall. Clearly, there could be more than meets the eye on that corner, I thought. Facebook put us in contact and shortly after posting the foto, the writer mails me a copy of her book.

 

Twenty stories and a glossary give the writer the opportunity to cover a lot of territory and time, fogging boundaries between story collection and coming of age novel. But …After… is not a novel but a well-connected set of stories that can be seen as one woman’s life, and ultimately, it’s not a valuable question. The book is subtitled “Short Stories” and that settles that.

 

Unsettling is what you get. Disarming, too. These emotions happen per individual story, and through concatenation of the stories as a whole. This is a good thing, by the way. For me, the book started with wariness and curiosity. Near the middle of the table of contents, Rivera has a story named “Macario.” 

 

It’s the first I read, curious to see if this is a takeoff on the B. Traven story/movie of the indio who wants to eat a turkey all by himself. “Macario” is one of those what the heck? Experiences. A man spins out a Bocaccioesque story of his life learning a trade, whoring with his employer, meeting his wife. Risqué to dirty, it’s a story told by a father to his girls. Life pulls no punches for the people of …After…

 

The lead story offers a masterful example of disarming and unsettling. “Alma About Four-Thirty In the Afternoon” feels suspenseful, like a spy story told in the first person. A friend takes a package in hand “Be careful. They need it.” Across town the character goes, by bus, fearing soldiers and searches and getting disappeared.

 

Rivera explores the relationships between the two friends, across time and in a variety of urban and rural settings, city, university, and home. The two students enjoy performance art on public buses, distributing flyers under the noses of repression. They are revolucionary-lite.

 

Prepare to be disarmed in a big understated way, and in a writerly masterful way mixing passive and active voice for a lethal laugh from surprise. 

 

“It began at a meeting where some compañeros informed us about the new American buses arriving in the country.... The next day when the buses are put into service, almost all of them are firebombed. They are “very nice” but they do not really have radios and televisions inside.”

 

The reader is set up for the surprise and a sudden change in how we perceive the prankster, 

 

“After Alma and I empty all the passengers out of one bus, Alma postures herself like an eagle ready to fly, and, facing north with a grenade in hand, she yells angrily, “Reagan, American imperialists, we shit on your brains and stick your dreams of technological superiority up your ass! Don't you remember Vietnam?”

 

The scene concludes with Alma pulling the pin and the two revolutionary students disappearing into the crowd. Rivera’s moving pretty fast now, this character will end the story armed and walking the street a marked woman.

 

People who read Chicana Chicano Literature are going to enjoy reading these stories. After that opening war story, there’s a story about a girl’s first period, stories about pregnancy, sex, abuse, abortion, death and burial. Common experiences set against Salvadorean chaos are anything but quotidian events, and that fact keeps a reader unsettled. It’s the same only really different!

 

And this is not Chicano Literature, where war and revolution are twentieth century events, las Adelitas, romantic corridos, ahai! In El Salvador, war waits around every corner where some rapist or soldier can grab a woman and disappear her. Don’t walk there alone.

 

Carolina Rivera Escamilla isn’t hitting readers over the head with the danger, nor making cultural differences idiosyncratic. There’s a host of valuable political and cultural information in these stories, as well as what’s been called “literature as equipment for living.” Put yourself in this character’s world. She grows up adapting to whatever is thrown in her path, except the consequences  include torture and death. Do what you need and don’t get caught, or leave the country. That makes voting look all the more attractive. GOTV.

World Stage Press link.

Reflections on Publishing My Twelfth Book, "How to Date a Flying Mexican: New and Collected Stories"

 

By Daniel A. Olivas

Almost 25 years ago, I started writing fiction. My first published short story appeared in the literary journal RiverSedge in 1998. In 2000, a small, now-defunct press based in Pennsylvania published my first book, The Courtship of María Rivera Peña: A Novella. I was 41 years old, married, the father of an 11-year-old boy, and well-established in my legal career with the California Attorney General’s office. That book is now out print, but it served as the foundation for ten more books—fiction, nonfiction, poetry—including two I edited. And in writing those books, I honed my storytelling skills which, in recent years, spawned a new life in playwriting.

Now a twelfth book is on the horizon. I am a man in his early sixties facing retirement in a few years. Luckily, I am still married to my law school sweetheart as we are about to celebrate 35 years of marriage. And our son is now 31, a grown many with a career and a rich life on his own. My father was called back last September, but my mother is still running circles around her grandkids and great-grandkids.

On February 1, 2022, the University of Nevada Press will publish my latest book, How to Date a Flying Mexican: New and Collected Stories. If you are a reviewer who is on NetGalley, I invite you to read the galleys.

How did this new book come to be? During the pandemic and in the wake of my father’s death, I set upon the task of reviewing almost 25 years’ worth of my short stories that had been published in various collections or as parts of novels. Our strange times seemed to call for this type of introspection and examination. I found that many of my narratives fell within the world of magic, fairy tales, fables, and dystopian futures.

This review also revealed that many of my fictions confronted—either directly or obliquely—questions of morality, justice, and self-determination while being deeply steeped in Chicano and Mexican culture. I decided to choose my favorite tales from the many scores of stories that populated my published works. I added to the mix two recent stories—one dystopian, the other magical—both of which confront the last administration’s anti-immigrant rhetoric and policies. The result is How to Date a Flying Mexican: New and Collected Stories.

We are now setting up book appearances to help bring this new book out into the world. The book launch will be at the venerable Vroman’s Bookstore on February 3, and I will be making an appearance at Skylight Books on February 26. I will also be a guest author at the Tucson Festival of Books on March 12 and 13. Other readings are being planned including one at Tía Chucha’s in spring. I hope you will be able to attend one of them. I am updating my events page as I get confirmations.

If you are a writer who has birthed at least one book, you know about the nightmares: your book gets published and when you open a copy, the pages are blank or they are in complete disarray with pages missing and words filled with typos. I am currently having those nightmares.

But no matter. I am blessed that a wonderful press has agreed to publish my work. I will do everything I can to bring it into the world with all of my energy, hard work, and love. I hope you will come along for the ride.

Birthing a New Book

 

The typewriter owned by Michael Augustine Olivas

On Sunday, I received my copy editor's redline to my manuscript, How to Date a Flying Mexican: New and Collected Stories (University of Nevada Press), coming out in February 2022. The email included a lovely letter from my copy editor, Robin DuBlanc, that began:

“Congratulations on How to Date a Flying Mexican. Your stories are by turns intriguing, funny, poignant, charming, alarming, and above all human. I had to force myself to slow down while editing because I often had a tendency to rush to see what would happen next.”

And so, the birthing of my new book truly begins. This will be the twelfth time I’ve worked with a copy editor on one of my books (I’ve written ten books, and served as anthology editor for two), and each time, I get butterflies of anticipation. But this book is particularly special to me. As I explain in my introduction to the manuscript, my late father, Michael Augustine Olivas, loved the title story which is why I chose it to lead off the book and set the tone, if you will. I also dedicate the collection to him.

My father's declining health and my weekly visits with him inspired me last year to review my published stories of the last 20-plus years and choose my favorites for this collection. I then added two newer ones to complete it. My father, who passed away September 23, 2021, never lived to hear the news that a publisher enthusiastically accepted it earlier this year. But we had an opportunity to discuss my selection process which brought him great joy.

My father never got to publish his own fiction and poetry. He worked in a factory while he and my mother raised five children. But he wrote on a little manual typewriter when I was young and completed a novel and many poems. However, publishers rejected his submissions. I think my father was ahead of his time. Very few publishers would even consider a manuscript written by a Chicano who told stories and had themes that were not "mainstream."

He eventually destroyed his manuscripts and focused on getting his college degree and master's. So, when I became a published writer over 20 years ago, my father was so proud. Writing was our special bond. I miss him dearly.

The Donkey Lady Fights La Llorona and Other Stories / La Senora Asno Se Enfrenta a la Llorona y Otros Cuentos

By Xavier Garza

•    ISBN-13: 9781558858169

•    Publisher: Pinata Books 

•    Imprint: Pinata Books 

•    Publication date: Oct 31, 2015

•    Language of text: English, Spanish

Margarito is eleven years old now and he's way past believing in Grandpa Ventura's ghost stories, but he loves listening to them anyway. One evening on his way home from his grandfather's, Margarito finds himself alone in the gathering dusk, crossing a narrow bridge. Suddenly, a woman in white floats towards him and calls, "Come to me, child ? come to me!" He frantically hides in the shallow river, but soon sees a pair of yellow, glowing eyes swimming towards him. Before long, the Donkey Lady and La Llorona are circling each other, fighting to claim poor Margarito as their next victim!

Popular storyteller Xavier Garza returns with another collection of eerie tales full of creepy creatures from Latin American lore. There are duendes, bald, green-skinned brutes with sharp teeth; thunderbirds, giant pterodactyl-like things that discharge electricity from their wings during thunderstorms; and blood-sucking beasts that drain every single drop of blood from their victims' bodies!

Set in contemporary times, Garza's young protagonists deal with much more than just the supernatural: there are chupacabras and drug dealers, witches and bullies, a jealous cousin and the devil. Accompanied by the author's dramatic black and white illustrations, the short, blood-curdling stories in this bilingual collection for ages 8 ? 12 are sure to bewitch a whole new generation of young people.




Also by Xavier Garza

Creepy Creatures and Other Cucuys

The stories in this collection curdle with the creepy and crawling characters of traditional folklore. These stories brim with the supernatural: the mysterious disappearance of children who made deals with duendes, evil trolls who live inside the walls of our houses; the ghostly specter of La Llorona who floats along the creek bed, howling, "¡Ay, mis hijos!"; witches that turn into great white owls; a severed hand that hurtles across floors and catches a death grip; and even the Devil himself harvesting wayward souls. 

Kid Cyclone Fights the Devil and Other Stories / Kid Ciclon Se Enfrenta a El Diablo Y Otras Historias 

Popular kids' book author Xavier Garza returns with another collection of stories featuring spooky characters from Mexican-American folklore. There's a witch that takes the shape of a snake in order to poison and punish those who disregard her warnings; green-skinned, red-eyed creatures called chupacabras that suck the blood from wild pigs, but would just as soon suck the blood from a human who has lost his way in the night; a young girl disfigured in a fire set by a scorned lover who gets her revenge as the Donkey Lady; and the Elmendorf Beast, said to have the head of a wolf with skin so thick it's impervious to shotgun blasts.

Review: Lo que trae la marea. Stanford book choice. Mail Bag.

Xánath Caraza. Lo que trae la marea / What the tide brings. Translated by Sandra Kingery, Stephen Holland-Wempe, and Xánath Caraza. El Paso, Texas : Mouthfeel Press, 2013.
ISBN: 0984426884 9780984426881

Michael Sedano

I reshelved the paperback, The World’s Great Short Stories, satisfied that this 1960s era collection, from my English major years in a pre-homicidal Isla Vista, still had moxie. I love old gems like “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge,” “Big Blonde,” de Maupassant in translation. In fact, nostalgic pangs rose for Bocaccio, Chaucer, the whole shebang of Euro-United Statesian belles lettres, until I shook off looking back. Instead, I picked up a copy of Xánath Caraza’s bilingual collection Lo que trae la marea What the Tide Brings. Welcome to the future.

Lo que trae la marea What the Tide Brings makes important contribution to understanding America’s contemporary literary environment. Written in Spanish and translated by a team including the author, the collection of Spanish-then-English stories doesn’t carve out readership so much as it opens markets on both sides of the nation’s and continent’s language frontera.

The publisher’s location in Spanglish-speaking El Paso positions Mouthfeel Press to ride the swell of a rising tide of books that take in the two dominant American readerships in a single volume. Such are few, but with publishers challenged to find new markets, chicana writers like Caraza-- a Mexicana who lives in Missouri—offer rich possibilities. Simultaneous translation welcomes monolinguals of either idiom while enriching a bilingual’s literary choices.

The quality of Caraza’s 17 stories--34 in all, counting both languages--already has bloguera Caraza on numerous “best of” prize rosters. Xánath Caraza is the Monday La Bloga columnist, alternating with Daniel Olivas. Watch Xánath’s columns for updates on myriad nominations and honors coming to rest on Caraza’s mantle.

Lo que trae la marea What the Tide Brings features its Spanish-language version, followed by English. Language learners will appreciate an opportunity to flip from page to page to catch nuances in ways language works across meaning. Examples of these enrich the experience of each language’s expressive resources. The collection is rich in small triumphs of translation that add texture to one’s enjoyment.

A vivid example occurs in “After the Bridges.” A busy office slows down. Occupants notice the absence of noise. In English, silence intrudes on the natural order of the world of work:
“She knew that the end of the day was approaching because the pace was gradually slowing down. As the minutes went by, silence encroached upon them until almost no one,” 116

In Spanish, silence offers a return to normal:
“Supo que el final del día se estaba acercando porque poco a poco el ritmo se fue haciendo más lento. Por cada minuto que pasaba el silencio fue acrecentándose hasta que casí nadie,” 110

The difference between crecer and encroach elicits cultural approaches to workplaces. In Spanish,
silence enlarges naturally, evoking Boyle’s law that silence expands to fill the space where it belongs. In English, silence kicks down the door and takes over.

Among the highlights of the collection are Caraza’s masterful synaesthesia skills, exhibited in story after story. In “After the Bridges” the worker enjoys a cup of coffee accompanied by taste, smell, touch, color, vision, hearing:

“The next morning, as she took the first sip of coffee, she closed her eyes and inhaled the aroma of coffee with cardamom from her ceramic cup. With the first sip, she heard the sound of marimbas in the distance. With the second sip, the turquoise sky over the town square of La Antigua and its lush green trees materialized in her mind. Another sip of coffee and the candy vendors in the town square offered her white milk candy and shredded coconut sweets dyed pink.”117

In Lo que trae la marea / What the tide brings, Xánath Caraza puts together a fast-moving collection, varying the pace spacing one- and two-page pieces between more extended 5- or ten page stories. Each comes self-contained, no need to look for links from story to story. Each reads quickly, allowing the writer to sneak up on readers, leaving a reader leafing back a few paragraphs to confirm a detail, or to savor the synaesthesia of a moment, and especially to savor the magic that permeates nearly every story.

Among the most interesting of the puro magic stories is the sensual, “Café On Huanjue Xiang Street.” A woman wanders into a basement coffee den, the solitary customer. She drinks in the ambiente and passes out. When she comes to, the place is filled with stolid gente ignoring her. This key scene illustrates the skill Caraza weaves her magic pluma:

“She remained very attentive to the small blue flame that contrasted with the red, airy atmosphere of the place. She waited until the blue flame was extinguished while the coffee aroma penetrated her nose. She introduced the spoon into the black fluid, and as the sugar touched the coffee, a spirit emerged from the cup. The spirit wrapped around her in a smoky spiral. It traversed her, lightly touched her nipples and sex until she lost consciousness.” 128

Writers will take a lot of pleasure from the magic when a writer meets a mysterious stranger who hands her a book. Inside, the writer finds the finished story she has only drafted in her notebook. She reads it to find out how it comes out. Then there’s the teacher’s lament about the copier, how it transfers the teacher’s identity to the page and when the student answers the question the teacher feels each pen stroke on each of the hundred copies she ran through the copy machine. Caraza even gets in an hommage to Bierce’s “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge,” in her “Flower in the Mist.”

Lo que trae la marea/What the Tide Brings is not to be missed. A woman’s point of view, in the two dominant American languages, this book is the future of United States literature. It’s not a secret, it’s demographics. Salvation for American publishing means make the books American, like Lo que trae la marea/What the Tide Brings.


Stanford Book Club Choice: Give It To Me

Southern California Stanford Latina Latino Alumni Book Club meets regularly for company, food, and excellent discussions of a book by a Chicana Chicano Latina Latino writer.

The August 24, 2014 selection is Ana Castillo's Give It To Me.

The group meets at 1:00 p.m. in Monrovia, California. Click here for information.

Mail Bag
Comadres and Compadres Writers Conference Discount Ends

Early bird discount deadline 6/1: 

La Bloga friend Marcela Landrés reminds writers of the Fall conference on the East Coast. Marcela sends datos:

The 3rd Annual Comadres and Compadres Writers Conference will provide Latino writers with access to published Latino authors as well as agents and editors who have a proven track record of publishing Latino books. We invite you to join us this year as a sponsor, advertiser, and/or attendee.

WHEN: Saturday, September 27, 2014

WHERE: Medgar Evers College, Brooklyn, NY

WHO: Esmeralda Santiago, author of the New York Times best-seller Conquistadora, will serve as keynote speaker. Panelists include: Meg Medina, author of Yaqui Delgado Wants to Kick Your Ass; Johanna Castillo, Vice President & Senior Editor, Atria/Simon & Schuster; and Jeff Ourvan, Literary Agent, Jennifer Lyons Literary Agency. For more details regarding the conference program, visit http://lascomadres.com/latinolit/latino-writers-conference/ 

Mail Bag
Troncoso Updates Truth

La Bloga friend Sergio Troncoso wants gente to know about the recent edition of his novel. Here's Sergio's email:

Dear Friends:

I am delighted to let you know that a revised and updated edition of my novel, The Nature of Truth, is now available in paperback for the first time (Arte Publico Press, 2014). I hope you will consider reading it. I wrote the novel because I loved that mix of philosophy and literature in writers like Dostoyevsky, Sartre, Camus, and Kafka, and also because I wanted to expand the literary terrain of Latino writers. I made some important changes in the plot and tightened the language, which I think makes this edition a better experience for readers.

Helmut Sanchez, a research assistant at Yale, discovers that his boss, a renowned professor, hides a Nazi past. By chance Helmut discovers an old letter written decades ago, which absolves Germany and Austria of any guilt for the Holocaust. As he digs into the origins of who wrote the letter, Helmut discovers it could be his boss, Werner Hopfgartner. Helmut travels to Austria and Italy with his girlfriend, Ariane Sassolini, in his quest to find the truth about Hopfgartner's past. Meanwhile, Professor Regina Neumann is determined to make Hopfgartner pay for his many sexual liaisons with undergraduate and graduate students. What will Helmut do with the awful truth he discovers? Will Werner Hopfgartner ever face justice for his past or present transgressions? Ultimately, what is the nature of truth?

Here is an interview I did with Maria Hinojosa on National Public Radio's Latino USA:
http://sergiotroncoso.podomatic.com/entry/2014-04-22T04_40_46-07_00

Guest Columnist: Thelma Reyna Reviews Rain of Scorpions

La Bloga Guest Columnist: Thelma T. Reyna, Ph.D.

Review: Estela Portillo Trambley. Rain of Scorpions and Other Writings. Berkeley: Tonatiuh International,  1975 (First Edition)  No. of Pages: 178

        

        

         When Estela Portillo Trambley passed away at the age of 62 in 1998, we lost one of our most notable Hispanic-American literary icons. Born in El Paso, Texas, she broke significant barriers with her first book, Rain of Scorpions and Other Writings, a historic work on several fronts: It was the first collection of short stories published in the U.S.  by an American Latina; the first book by a Chicana to win an important national literary award (Premio Quinto Sol, 1972), as well as the first book written by a woman to win this prize.

Portillo Trambley did something for which not only we women authors, but all authors, should feel deeply indebted: She introduced the female voice to contemporary Latino letters and thus changed the direction and focus of this literature forever.

         Her book was immediately notable for its presence in a sea of male authors.   Modern Chicano literature began its flowering post-World War II with Jose Antonio Villareal’s Pocho (1959) and reached impressive bloom in the 1970’s, with books that are now classics—Tomás Rivera’s Y no se lo tragó la tierra  (1971); Rodolfo Anaya’s Bless Me, Ultima (1972); Rolando Hinojosa-Smith’s Estampas del Valle y otras obras (1973); and Nash Candelaria’s Memories of the Alhambra (1977). The sole woman in this historic line-up of pioneers was Estella Portillo Trambley with her Rain of Scorpions and Other Writings (1975). She was also the only woman to follow on the heels of Rivera, Anaya, and Hinojosa-Smith in winning the annual Premio Quinto Sol. And the rest, as they say, is history.

         Portillo Trambley went on to distinguish herself in a variety of genres. Her body of work includes her well-known play, The Day of the Swallows (1971); Sor Juana and Other Plays (1983); her novel Trini (1986); and her award-winning drama, Blacklight (1985). Rain of Scorpions and Other Stories (1993) was a special edition that included extensive revisions made by Portillo Trambley herself.

         The original Rain of Scorpions and Other Writings  includes nine short stories and the title piece, which is a novella. Whereas early male Chicano authors often focused on Latinos’ alienation from mainstream society, their oppression, and political/economic disenfranchisement, Portillo Trambley took on other themes. Often referred to as a feminist, she created strong women characters whose resilience and resourcefulness emanated from devotion to family, self-knowledge, community, and love. Her fellow male authors depicted how mainstream society marginalized and demeaned Latinos, but Portillo Trambley zeroed in on women of different social classes and ethnic groups to show how they all had something in common: oppression by a male-dominated society and unyielding tradition.

How these women break free of their bonds is what Portillo Trambley’s writing is all about. Her women are required to buck tradition, to invent and reinvent themselves in their own image, and—sometimes—even to commit crime. Whether they are wealthy heiresses, middle-class professionals, immigrants, poor villagers in Mexico, Spanish gypsies, Caucasians, or Indian curanderas, the women in Portillo Trambley’s stories soldier onward and find ways to escape what life has dealt them. They do it subtly, spiritually, selfishly, violently, or craftily, but they find ways to obtain freedom.

         There is the aristocratic Clotilde Romero in “The Paris Gown,” who sacrifices her reputation in a last-ditch effort to escape an arranged marriage; Nan Fletcher in “Pilgrimage,” whose husband deserts her for a younger woman, and who now, through the religious piety of her housekeeper, must find peace; Marusha, the alienated Spanish gypsy in “Duende,” whose poverty cuts through her soul as she seeks financial and career success in vain; Lela, the pagan healer in “The Burning,” whose gifts of love are rejected in ideological ignorance; and Lupe, an obese, unattractive young woman in “Rain of Scorpions,” who leads life to the fullest by embodying selflessness and wisdom.

         The boldest rebel against male oppression, Beatriz, appears in the last short story of the book, “If It Weren’t for the Honeysuckle,” set in an isolated Mexican village. Beatriz is a paradox: slender and gentle, but cunning and tough because she’s been through the fire, oppressed first by nine demanding brothers, then by Robles, a violently abusive drunkard she takes on as her common-law husband. At the mercy of men, she somehow crafts a life for herself that flourishes in the absence of men. A tireless, strong worker who loves gardening, Beatriz turns to nature for answers and for eventual redemption from the vile Robles.

         Yet Portillo Trambley, who strove to “discover...the miracle of people and a world,” as she wrote on the back cover of her book, saw beauty and goodness in men’s souls as she did in women’s. The most touching, sympathetic males in her book are not oppressive and rigid. In “The Secret Room,” Julius (Julio) Otto Vass Schleifer, a German heir in Mexico realizes that there are greater things in life—such as social justice and true love—than one’s own culture and wealth. In “Duende,” the gypsy immigrant Triano is widely known in his impoverished neighborhood as “a good listener...who melted well into life...[and] mended things and people”.  In the title novella—in  which brave, ordinary people, young and old, male and female, join forces to fight a greedy corporation’s destruction of their community and their people through unbridled pollution and deception—the male heroes solve their problems in a touching manner that forges a deeper level of community and peace in their daily lives.

         Portillo Trambley felt that Chicano writers must not limit themselves to Chicano themes and struggles. She believed that our stage is the human stage and that our characters and messages must be universal. So she wrote about the importance and power of love in our lives, the burning quest for freedom in all of us, the undeniable value of community and family, and the necessity of forging our own personal identities for the greatest meaning. She was sometimes criticized by fellow Chicano writers for taking this stance instead of joining in the militancy and advocacy of Chicanismo, but time has proven her beliefs more durable, as American Latino literature has veered further and further away from political themes toward greater universality.

        

         Unfortunately, Portillo Trambley’s work never received the attention showered on her male contemporaries, a deep disappointment to her and one she attributed to the entrenchment of discrimination against women. She once stated in 1980: “Most male teachers of Chicano literature will look at all the men before they’ll tackle me. After all, I am just a woman....we still have our closed doors and our own way of polarizing everything between men and women.”

Still, Portillo Trambley’s place in the canon of American Latino literature cannot be denied. Her incisive observations of people and of life itself are profound and elegantly stated. She delves into the souls of her characters, expressing her recurrent themes in a cadence reminiscent of verse and great speeches, replete with alliteration, repetition, metaphors, and imagery. This elevates her prose to heavenly heights at many points in her book. As some critics believe, her writing is sometimes heavy-handed with editorializing rather than allowing the story to tell itself. But experience shows us that the “firsts” of anything important are not as developed as they will eventually be. Portillo grew immensely throughout her career and inspired generations of Latinas to take up the mantle of creativity and follow in her footsteps.

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*  The following sources were used for this article: Vernon E. Lattin’s & Patricia Hopkins’ “Introduction: Crafting Other Visions: Estela Portillo Trambley’s New Rain of Scorpions,” in the 1993 edition of the book; Reference Library of Hispanic America, Vol. III, ed. by Sonia G. Benson (2003); The Norton Anthology of Latino Literature, ed. by Ilan Stavans (2011).

Meet Thelma:

Thelma Reyna, a Pasadena poet and writer, author of The Heavens Weep for Us and Other Stories (2009, Outskirts Press), which has won four national awards. Her short stories, poems, essays, book reviews, and other non-fiction have been published in literary and academic journals, literature textbooks, anthologies, blogs, and regional media off and on since the 1970’s. Her first poetry chapbook, Breath & Bone (Finishing Line Press, 2011) was a semi-finalist in a national poetry chapbook competition. Dr. Reyna is an adjunct professor at California State University, Los Angeles. Her website is www.ThelmaReyna.com.