Event Category: Online Book Panel or Reading

Margarita Pintado Reads at Wildwood Writers Virtual Event

When: Thursday, March 21, 2024

Time: 9 a.m., EDT

Where: Lancaster East 203, Harrisburg Area Community College, Lancaster, PA and on Zoom

Margarita Pintado Burgos will read from her book, Ojo en Celo / Eye in Heat  as part of the Wildwood Writers’ Festival at Harrisburg Area Community College in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. The Festival is free and open to the public, with writers reading from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., EDT, in person and on Zoom. Ojo en celo / Eye in Heat is the 2023 winner of the Ambroggio Prize of the of the Academy of American Poets.

About the book:

Aflame with desire, the eye conjures, dreams, invents itself, sees what it wants. The eye sees what it is able to see.

Ojo en celo / Eye in Heat brings into sharp relief the limits of our gaze. It shows us what it is to escape the mirror and move beyond mirages. Margarita Pintado Burgos invites us to ponder the impasse while showing us ways to see better, to break the habit of lying, and to confront images along with language.

With devastating clarity, Pintado Burgos’s poems, presented in both Spanish and English, give voice to the world within and beyond sight: the plants, the trees, the birds, the ocean waves, the fruit forgotten in the kitchen, the house’s furniture. Light takes on new dimensions to expose, manipulate, destroy, and nourish. Alejandra Quintana Arocho’s sensitive English translation renders the stark force of these poems without smoothing over the language of the original.

Renae Watchman Speaks at Diné College

When: Thursday, April 18, 2024

Time: 5 – 6:30 p.m., AZT

Where: 1st Floor, Ned Hatathli Cultural Center, Diné College, Tsaile, AZ, and Facebook Live @dine.college

Renae Watchman will speak about her book Restoring Relations Through Stories: From Dinétah to Denendeh at Diné College’s Nits’áá dóó ídahwiil’aah “We are learning from you,” speaker series. Watchman is an associate professor of Indigenous studies at McMaster University; she teaches Indigenous literatures and Indigenous film and is the co-editor of Indianthusiasm: Indigenous Responses. Her book introduces the dynamic field of Indigenous film through a close analysis of two distinct Diné-directed feature-length films, and ends by introducing Dene literatures. This talk will be the final one for the Spring Speaker Series. The event will be in-person at Ned Hatathli Cultural Center at Diné College and on Facebook live. The lecture is free and open to the public.

About the book:

This insightful volume delves into land-based Diné and Dene imaginaries as embodied in stories—oral, literary, and visual. Like the dynamism and kinetic facets of hózhǫ́,* Restoring Relations Through Stories takes us through many landscapes, places, and sites. Renae Watchman introduces the book with an overview of stories that bring Tsé Bitʼaʼí, or Shiprock Peak, the sentinel located in what is currently the state of New Mexico, to life.

Margarita Pintado Hosts Virtual Book Launch

When: Thursday, March 14, 2024

Time: 12 p.m., PST

Where: Zoom, click on flyer below

Margarita Pintado Burgos celebrates her book, Ojo en Celo / Eye in Heat in a virtual book launch on Zoom. Joining her in conversation will be translator for the book Alejandra Quintana Arocho, along with poet Marta Jazmín García, and poet and translator Elidio La Torre Lagares. Ojo en celo / Eye in Heat is the 2023 winner of the Ambroggio Prize of the of the Academy of American Poets.

About the book:

Aflame with desire, the eye conjures, dreams, invents itself, sees what it wants. The eye sees what it is able to see.

Ojo en celo / Eye in Heat brings into sharp relief the limits of our gaze. It shows us what it is to escape the mirror and move beyond mirages. Margarita Pintado Burgos invites us to ponder the impasse while showing us ways to see better, to break the habit of lying, and to confront images along with language.

With devastating clarity, Pintado Burgos’s poems, presented in both Spanish and English, give voice to the world within and beyond sight: the plants, the trees, the birds, the ocean waves, the fruit forgotten in the kitchen, the house’s furniture. Light takes on new dimensions to expose, manipulate, destroy, and nourish. Alejandra Quintana Arocho’s sensitive English translation renders the stark force of these poems without smoothing over the language of the original.

Heidenreich and Saavedra at Gonzaga with Livestream

Date: Saturday, March 2, 2024

Time: 1 – 9 pm, PST

Where: Hemmingson Auditorium, Gonzaga University, 702 Desmet Ave, Spokane, WA

L Heidenreich, co-author with Rita E. Urquijo-Ruiz of Writing That Matters, and Yvette Saavedra, author of Pasadena Before the Roses, will speak at a Gonzaga University symposium.  “The Past, Present and Future of Chicano/a Studies: An Inland NW Summit in Honor of Dr. Deena González,” includes several sessions.

Symposium schedule:

1 p.m.: The Past of Chicano/a Studies: Reflections on the Origins of the Field

3 p.m.: The Present Chicano/a Studies: Students Making History

4:15 p.m.: The Future of Chicano/a Studies: Where Do We Go From Here?

7 p.m.: Davis Lecture, “The Women in My Life” given by Dr. Deena González

The symposium is free and open to the public. Livestream will be available at https://www.gonzaga.edu/streaming.

About Writing That Matters: A Handbook for Chicanx and Latinx Studies:

Have you ever wanted a writing and research manual that centered Chicanx and Latinx scholarship? Writing that Matters does just that.

While it includes a brief history of the roots of the fields of Chicanx literature and history, Writing that Matters emphasizes practice: how to research and write a Chicanx or Latinx history paper; how to research and write a Chicanx or Latinx literature or cultural studies essay; and how to conduct interviews, frame pláticas, and conduct oral histories. It also includes a brief chapter on nomenclature and a grammar guide.

About Pasadena Before the Roses:Race, Identity, and Land Use in Southern California, 1771–1890:

Incorporated in 1886 by midwestern settlers known as the Indiana Colony, the City of Pasadena has grown into a world-famous tourist destination recognized for the beauty of its Tournament of Roses Parade, the excitement of the annual Rose Bowl, and the charm of the Old Town District.

But what existed before the roses? Before it was Pasadena, this land was Hahamog’na, the ancestral lands of the Tongva people. Later, it comprised the heart of the San Gabriel Mission lands, and in the Mexican period, it became Rancho San Pascual. The 1771 Spanish conquest of this land set in motion several colonial processes that would continue into the twentieth century and beyond.

 

Diane Dittemore on Virtual Basketry Panel

When: Saturday, February 17, 2024

Time: 1 p.m., EST

Where: Register for Zoom

Diane Dittemore joins Edward A. Jolie and August Wood in a virtual discussion, “Continuing Textile Traditions: Basketry in the North American Southwest, from Prehistory to Now,” presented by Weave a Real Peace. Dittemore, author of Woven from the Center, Native Basketry in the Southwest, will share her unique perspective on baskets, with topics ranging from the ancient, historic and contemporary cultural contexts from which they stem, and efforts to make study and interpretation more culturally inclusive. Diane Dittemore is an associate curator of ethnology at the Arizona State Museum, where she has worked for more than forty years. She was lead curator for the 2017 permanent exhibit Woven through Time: Native Treasures of Basketry and Fiber Arts.

To receive the Zoom link, register here.

About the book:

Woven from the Center presents breathtaking basketry from some of the greatest weavers in the Southwest. Each sandal and mat fragment, each bowl and jar, every water bottle and whimsy is infused with layers of aesthetic, cultural, and historical meanings. This book offers stunning photos and descriptions of woven works from Tohono O’odham, Akimel O’odham, Hopi, Western Apache, Yavapai, Navajo, Pai, Paiute, New Mexico Pueblo, Eastern Apache, Seri, Yaqui, Mayo, and Tarahumara communities.

 

“Yaguareté White” Virtual Book Launch

Date: Tuesday, February 20, 2024

Time: 7 p.m., CST

Where: Register for Zoom link here

Poet Diego Báez celebrates the publication of Yaguareté White with poets Tracy Fuad, Laura Cresté and C.E. Wallace in a reading and discussion hosted by Rosebud Ben-Oni. His debut collection Yaguareté White is a lyrical exploration of Paraguayan American identity and what it means to see through a colored whiteness in all of its tangled contradictions.

About the book:

In Yaguareté White, English, Spanish, and Guaraní encounter each other through the elusive yet potent figure of the jaguar. The son of a Paraguayan father and a mother from Pennsylvania, Baéz grew up in central Illinois as one of the only brown kids on the block—but that didn’t keep him from feeling like a gringo on family visits to Paraguay. Exploring this contradiction as it weaves through experiences of language, self, and place, Baéz revels in showing up the absurdities of empire and chafes at the limits of patrimony, but he always reserves his most trenchant irony for the gaze he turns on himself.

Blaeser and Ocampo Speak at Virtual Event

Date: Friday, February 16, 2024

Time: 3 – 4:30 p.m.,  PST

Where: UC Riverside Writers Week Virtual Event, register here

Kimberly Blaeser, author of of Ancient Light and Daisy Ocampo, author of Where We Belong will speak at UC Riverside’s Writers Week. (Image above shows Ocampo on the left and Blaeser on the right.) The other writer on the panel is Randi LeClair (Pawnee Nation), Filmmaker of Native stories based in rural Oklahoma. The event is free and open to the public. Register for this virtual session on Zoom.

About the books:

Elegiac and powerful, Ancient Light uses lyric, narrative, and concrete poems to give voice to some of the most pressing ecological and social issues of our time. With vision and resilience, Kimberly Blaeser’s poetry layers together past, present, and futures. Against a backdrop of pandemic loss and injustice, MMIW (Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women), hidden graves at Native American boarding schools, and destructive environmental practices, Blaeser’s innovative poems trace pathways of kinship, healing, and renewal. They celebrate the solace of natural spaces through sense-laden geo-poetry and picto-poems.

Where We Belong brings together the history and experiences of the Chemehuevi people and their ties with Mamapukaib, or the Old Woman Mountains in the East Mojave Desert, and the Caxcan people and their relationship with Tlachialoyantepec, or Cerro de las Ventanas, in Zacatecas, Mexico. Through a trans-Indigenous approach, Daisy Ocampo weaves historical methodologies (oral histories, archival research, ethnography) with Native studies and historic preservation to reveal why Native communities are the most knowledgeable and transformational caretakers of their sacred places.

“Our Hidden Landscapes” in Virtual History Lecture Series

When: January 23, 2024

Time: 2 p.m., EST

Where: Register for Zoom

Our Hidden Landscapes edited by Lucianne Lavin and Elaine Thomas will be featured in a virtual history lecture series sponsored by Avon Historical Society and Avon Free Public Library. Lucianne Lavin will talk about built stone cultural features. The idea of Native Americans designing stone structures that represent sacred landscapes is fairly new to some Northeastern researchers, as it was historically–and erroneously—thought that local Indigenous peoples did not build in stone and all such structures were the result of European-American farming activities. Some of it is, but some of it is not.

To receive the Zoom link, register here.

About the book:

Native American authors provide perspectives on the cultural meaning and significance of ceremonial stone landscapes and their characteristics, while professional archaeologists and anthropologists provide a variety of approaches for better understanding, protecting, and preserving them. The chapters present overwhelming evidence in the form of oral tradition, historic documentation, ethnographies, and archaeological research that these important sites created and used by Indigenous peoples are deserving of protection.

This work enables archaeologists, historians, conservationists, foresters, and members of the general public to recognize these important ritual sites.

Alma García in Virtual “Poets & Writers” Event

When: December 7, 2023

Time: 7 p.m. EST

Where: Zoom

Alma García, author of All that Rises, was chosen as a Poets & Writers 5 over 50 writer. She will be speaking at the virtual reading and celebration hosted by Poets & Writers editor-in-chief Kevin Larimer.

The event is free, to RSVP and receive the Zoom link click here.

About the book:

In the border city of El Paso, Texas, two guardedly neighboring families have plunged headlong into a harrowing week. Rose Marie DuPre, wife and mother, has abandoned her family. On the doorstep of the Gonzales home, long-lost rebel Inez appears. As Rose Marie’s husband, Huck (manager of a maquiladora), and Inez’s brother, Jerry (a college professor), struggle separately with the new shape of their worlds, Lourdes, the Mexican maid who works in both homes, finds herself entangled in the lives of her employers, even as she grapples with a teenage daughter who only has eyes for el otro lado—life, American style.

Alma García Interview on Nuestra Palabra

When: Monday, Ocotber 23, 6:30 p.m., CDT

Where: Nuestra Palabra Live online

Tony Diaz, El Librotraficante, interviews Alma García about her new novel, All That Rises, on October 23. Watch the live interview on Nuestra Palabra Facebook, Twitter, or YouTube pages. The Nuestra Palabra podcast will be available on October 25. Alma García is a writer whose award-winning short fiction has appeared in Narrative Magazine and most recently in phoebe and the anthology Puro Chicanx Writers of the 21st Century. Originally from El Paso and later from Albuquerque, she now lives in Seattle.

About the book:

In the border city of El Paso, Texas, two guardedly neighboring families have plunged headlong into a harrowing week. Rose Marie DuPre, wife and mother, has abandoned her family. On the doorstep of the Gonzales home, long-lost rebel Inez appears. As Rose Marie’s husband, Huck (manager of a maquiladora), and Inez’s brother, Jerry (a college professor), struggle separately with the new shape of their worlds, Lourdes, the Mexican maid who works in both homes, finds herself entangled in the lives of her employers, even as she grapples with a teenage daughter who only has eyes for el otro lado—life, American style.

What follows is a story in which mysteries are unraveled, odd alliances are forged, and the boundaries between lives blur in destiny-changing ways—all in a place where the physical border between two countries is as palpable as it is porous, and the legacies of history are never far away.

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