Contributing author bios of
El Porvenir ¡Ya!
Citlalzazanilli Mexicatl. A Chicano Science-Fiction Anthology.
When Polaris Castillo was a kid, he wrote his address on a balloon and let it go so that aliens would find him. Polaris is a Los Angeles based Mexican artist and filmmaker whose work explores the cosmos of the human heart. He draws, paints, collages and makes videos inspired by the stars, nature and history.
Ernest Hogan is the author of the novels High Aztech, Smoking Mirror Blues, and Cortez on Jupiter. His work has appeared in Amazing Stories, Analog Science Fiction and Fact, Aztlán: A Journal of Chicano Studies, and many other periodicals and anthologies. He was born in East Los Angeles and his mother's maiden name is Garcia. Some call him the Father of Chicano Science Fiction. He blogs at mondoernesto.com and labloga.blogspot.com.
Mario Acevedo is the author of the bestselling Felix Gomez detective-vampire series, which includes Rescue From Planet Pleasure from WordFire Press. His debut novel, The Nymphos of Rocky Flats, was chosen by Barnes & Noble as one of the best Paranormal Fantasy Novels of the Decade and was a finalist for a Colorado Book Award. He contributed two stories for the award-winning horror anthology, Nightmares Unhinged, by Hex Publishers. His novel, Good Money Gone, co-authored with Richard Kilborn, won a best novel 2014 International Latino Book Award. Mario lives and writes in Denver, Colorado.
Frank S. Lechuga is the self-published author of the LOM series, dystopian science fiction with cyberpunk overtones and a streak of techno-shamanism. His work is described by Ernest Hogan as futuropulp/exploitation style action. The backdrop for LOM is a future Los Angeles. Frank S. Lechuga has an M.Ed. from Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts and was one of the first graduates of Chicano Studies at California State University, Northridge. He is an L.A. native and has been an educator and counselor in a previous lifetime.
Originally from Santa Fe, New Mexico, Martin Hill Ortiz teaches medicine at the Ponce Health Sciences University and lives in Puerto Rico. He has had three novels published, including Never Kill A Friend (Ransom Note Press) along with over a score of stories in print and online journals. He was a finalist in the 2020 Andrés Montoya Award. He is a member of MWA, Florida Chapter.
Pedro Iniguez is a speculative fiction writer and painter.
His work can be found in publications such as Star*Line, Space and Time Magazine, Speculative Fiction for Dreamers, Crossed Genres, and Tiny Nightmares.
His novel, Control Theory, and short story collection, Synthetic Dawns & Crimson Dusks, are available on Amazon.
Originally from Los Angeles, he now resides in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. He can be found online at Pedroiniguezauthor.com.
Nicholas Belardes’ work has been featured in Boom California (University of California Press), Speculative Fiction for Dreamers: A Latinx Anthology (Ohio State University Press), Pine Reads Review (University of Arizona), Carve Magazine, Southwestern American Literature (Texas State University), Latino Rebels, and more. A graduate candidate at University of California, Riverside Palm Desert Low Residency MFA, he studies fiction and nonfiction, and received the Fall 2021 Founder’s Award, given to a new student of particular promise each fall and spring. His works-in-progress focus on diversity, climate change, identity, family structures, and range from literary, eco-horror and fantasy. An avid birder, he lives in San Luis Obispo, CA.
Rios de la Luz is a queer xicana/chapina sci-fi loving writer living in El Paso. Her first book, The Pulse between Dimensions and the Desert, is out now via Ladybox Books. Her debut novella, ITZÁ is out now via Broken River Books. Her work has been featured in Vol. 1 Brooklyn, Entropy, Luna Magazine, Broadly, The Fem Lit Magazine, St. Sucia and Corporeal Clamor.
Armando Rendón knew he wanted to be writer since he was a kid, though his folks in San Antonio expected him to become a licenciado, someone with a professional degree. After graduating, he married and everything took a back seat to raising a family in Sacramento where he was the only news reporter for a weekly newspaper. Recruited by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights as a press officer, he went full scale into public affairs work, but in 1969, he got the idea for Chicano Manifesto, the book that became known as the Chicano Bible. Testing various genre he published a chapbook, Up to Earth, but settled into his favored genre, books for Young Adults. The award-winning The Adventures of Noldo and his Magical Scooter, a four-part series, was followed by The Wizard of the Blue Hole. Rendón is founder and editor of the Somos en escrito Literary Foundation, which publishes Somos en escrito Magazine.
Lizz Huerta is working class Mex-Rican writer living in San Diego. She writers bruja-mythic fiction. Her work has appeared in ZYZZYVA, The Portland Review, Lumina, Duende, The Miami Rail, Rabble Lit and other journals. Her forthcoming YA fantasy novel, The Lost Dreamer, is informed by pre-contact Mesoamerican mythology.
Born in San Antonio, Texas and raised in Monterrey México. Emmanuel Valtierra studied Graphic Design in the University of Nuevo Leon (UANL) and Photography in San Antonio College. After some time, he adopted the Aztec codex style for some of his works bringing him attention from the public. Releasing first a series of pop culture images, playing cards, and finally the book Codex Valtierra. The book had a Kickstarter campaign and won praise at the WorldCon 2018 in San Jose California.
The love Valtierra has for history has influenced him on all his projects. The goal is to keep teaching new generations about our past in a fun way in every media possible. In the future, Valtierra is planning to release more books, direct more videos, and work on more games for his public and followers.
Rosaura Sánchez and Beatrice Pita continue to imagine new spaces for thinking about resistance to state violence, subaltern histories, and futures to come. Just as their previous book, Lunar Braceros, 2125-2148, explored the extractive colonial tools of environmental disaster from the perspectives of moon workers and movements across the Americas, Keep Me Posted: Logins from Tomorrow delves deeper into the meaning of collective resistance—and how the subversive work of survival carries within it the memories of generations.
R. Ch. Garcia has a dozen adult, short stories traditionally published in anthologies (Latinos in Lotusland), journals & periodicals. His alternate-world novel, The Closet of Discarded Dreams, was honored by the International Latino Book Awards, SF/Fantasy genre. The sci-fi story, “Fatherly, dragonly, motherly . . . love, luck and touch” took 1st Place in Somos en escrito Magazine’s First Annual Extra-Fiction Writing Contest, 2018. His children's fable, in Spanish, was published by Cricket in Revista Iguana magazine.
His writing now focuses on young people to help bring about a future where everyone can be as lucky as he is. His adopted credo: “Give up on the adults!” – P. Bacigalupi
Writing in Northside Denver, Garcia gardens, landscapes, woodworks and cares for cactus and wild birds that visit his wife Carmen's gardens.
Ricardo Tavarez, who hails from Watsonville, California, and now lives in Oakland, has an MFA from San Francisco State. He is part of La Brigada, a collective that organizes the International SF Flor Y Canto Literary Festival. His writing has appeared most recently in the anthologies, Poetry in Flight: Poesía en Vuelo and The City is Already Speaking, the City being San Francisco.
Rosa Martha Villarreal, a Chicana novelist and essayist, is a descendant of the 16th century Spanish and Tlaxcatecan settlers of Nuevo Leon, Mexico. She drew upon her family history in her critically acclaimed novels Doctor Magdalena, Chronicles of Air and Dreams: A Novel of Mexico, and The Stillness of Love and Exile, the latter a recipient of the Josephine Miles PEN Literary Award and a Silver Medalist in the Independent Publishers Book Award (2008). She writes a column, “Tertullian’s Corner,” for Somos en escrito Magazine.
Carmen Baca taught high school and college English for thirty-six years before retiring in 2014. Her command of English and her regional Spanish dialect contributes to her story-telling style. Her debut novel El Hermano published in April of 2017 and became a finalist in the NM-AZ book awards program in 2018. Her third book, Cuentos del Cañón, received first place for short story fiction anthology in 2020 from the same program. To date, she has published 5 books and over 50 short works in online literary magazines and anthologies. She and her husband live a quiet life in the country caring for their animals and any stray cat that happens to come by.
Scott Russell Duncan, a.k.a. Scott Duncan-Fernandez, recently completed The Ramona Diary of SRD, a memoir of growing up Native/Xicano-Anglo and a fantastical tour reclaiming the myths of Mexican California. Scott received his MFA from Mills College in Oakland, California where he now lives and writes. He is senior editor at Somos en escrito Magazine. In 2016 his story “How My Hide Got Color” won San Francisco Litquake’s Short Story Contest. His nonfiction piece “Mexican American Psycho is in Your Dreams” won first place in the 2019 Solstice Literary Magazine Annual Literary Contest. He is at work on a collection of short stories called Mexpocalyptic Tales. See more about his work and publications on Scott’s website www.scottrussellduncan.com.
Gloria Delgado, born and raised in San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury district, is the daughter of a Mexican father and a Hawaii-born Puerto Rican mother. Former resident of Albany, California for over 50 years, she now lives with her husband in a semi-rural area near Santa Fe, New Mexico. She is a longtime researcher in Mexican and Puerto Rican genealogical archives. One of her stories, “Savanna,” was included in the Berkeley Community Memoir Project’s recently published collection, A Wiggle and a Prayer.
Kathleen Alcalá is the author of six books of fiction and nonfiction. Her work has received the Western States Book Award the Governor’s Writers Award, and a Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association Book Award, she received her second Artist Trust Fellowship in 2008, and in 2014 was honored by the national Latinx writers group, Con Tinta. Designated an Island Treasure in the Arts on Bainbridge Island, Kathleen’s work will be included in the PALABRA archive of the Library of Congress.
Ernest Hogan is the author of the novels High Aztech, Smoking Mirror Blues, and Cortez on Jupiter. His work has appeared in Amazing Stories, Analog Science Fiction and Fact, Aztlán: A Journal of Chicano Studies, and many other periodicals and anthologies. He was born in East Los Angeles and his mother's maiden name is Garcia. Some call him the Father of Chicano Science Fiction. He blogs at mondoernesto.com and labloga.blogspot.com.
Mario Acevedo is the author of the bestselling Felix Gomez detective-vampire series, which includes Rescue From Planet Pleasure from WordFire Press. His debut novel, The Nymphos of Rocky Flats, was chosen by Barnes & Noble as one of the best Paranormal Fantasy Novels of the Decade and was a finalist for a Colorado Book Award. He contributed two stories for the award-winning horror anthology, Nightmares Unhinged, by Hex Publishers. His novel, Good Money Gone, co-authored with Richard Kilborn, won a best novel 2014 International Latino Book Award. Mario lives and writes in Denver, Colorado.
Frank S. Lechuga is the self-published author of the LOM series, dystopian science fiction with cyberpunk overtones and a streak of techno-shamanism. His work is described by Ernest Hogan as futuropulp/exploitation style action. The backdrop for LOM is a future Los Angeles. Frank S. Lechuga has an M.Ed. from Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts and was one of the first graduates of Chicano Studies at California State University, Northridge. He is an L.A. native and has been an educator and counselor in a previous lifetime.
Originally from Santa Fe, New Mexico, Martin Hill Ortiz teaches medicine at the Ponce Health Sciences University and lives in Puerto Rico. He has had three novels published, including Never Kill A Friend (Ransom Note Press) along with over a score of stories in print and online journals. He was a finalist in the 2020 Andrés Montoya Award. He is a member of MWA, Florida Chapter.
Pedro Iniguez is a speculative fiction writer and painter.
His work can be found in publications such as Star*Line, Space and Time Magazine, Speculative Fiction for Dreamers, Crossed Genres, and Tiny Nightmares.
His novel, Control Theory, and short story collection, Synthetic Dawns & Crimson Dusks, are available on Amazon.
Originally from Los Angeles, he now resides in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. He can be found online at Pedroiniguezauthor.com.
Nicholas Belardes’ work has been featured in Boom California (University of California Press), Speculative Fiction for Dreamers: A Latinx Anthology (Ohio State University Press), Pine Reads Review (University of Arizona), Carve Magazine, Southwestern American Literature (Texas State University), Latino Rebels, and more. A graduate candidate at University of California, Riverside Palm Desert Low Residency MFA, he studies fiction and nonfiction, and received the Fall 2021 Founder’s Award, given to a new student of particular promise each fall and spring. His works-in-progress focus on diversity, climate change, identity, family structures, and range from literary, eco-horror and fantasy. An avid birder, he lives in San Luis Obispo, CA.
Rios de la Luz is a queer xicana/chapina sci-fi loving writer living in El Paso. Her first book, The Pulse between Dimensions and the Desert, is out now via Ladybox Books. Her debut novella, ITZÁ is out now via Broken River Books. Her work has been featured in Vol. 1 Brooklyn, Entropy, Luna Magazine, Broadly, The Fem Lit Magazine, St. Sucia and Corporeal Clamor.
Armando Rendón knew he wanted to be writer since he was a kid, though his folks in San Antonio expected him to become a licenciado, someone with a professional degree. After graduating, he married and everything took a back seat to raising a family in Sacramento where he was the only news reporter for a weekly newspaper. Recruited by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights as a press officer, he went full scale into public affairs work, but in 1969, he got the idea for Chicano Manifesto, the book that became known as the Chicano Bible. Testing various genre he published a chapbook, Up to Earth, but settled into his favored genre, books for Young Adults. The award-winning The Adventures of Noldo and his Magical Scooter, a four-part series, was followed by The Wizard of the Blue Hole. Rendón is founder and editor of the Somos en escrito Literary Foundation, which publishes Somos en escrito Magazine.
Lizz Huerta is working class Mex-Rican writer living in San Diego. She writers bruja-mythic fiction. Her work has appeared in ZYZZYVA, The Portland Review, Lumina, Duende, The Miami Rail, Rabble Lit and other journals. Her forthcoming YA fantasy novel, The Lost Dreamer, is informed by pre-contact Mesoamerican mythology.
Born in San Antonio, Texas and raised in Monterrey México. Emmanuel Valtierra studied Graphic Design in the University of Nuevo Leon (UANL) and Photography in San Antonio College. After some time, he adopted the Aztec codex style for some of his works bringing him attention from the public. Releasing first a series of pop culture images, playing cards, and finally the book Codex Valtierra. The book had a Kickstarter campaign and won praise at the WorldCon 2018 in San Jose California.
The love Valtierra has for history has influenced him on all his projects. The goal is to keep teaching new generations about our past in a fun way in every media possible. In the future, Valtierra is planning to release more books, direct more videos, and work on more games for his public and followers.
Rosaura Sánchez and Beatrice Pita continue to imagine new spaces for thinking about resistance to state violence, subaltern histories, and futures to come. Just as their previous book, Lunar Braceros, 2125-2148, explored the extractive colonial tools of environmental disaster from the perspectives of moon workers and movements across the Americas, Keep Me Posted: Logins from Tomorrow delves deeper into the meaning of collective resistance—and how the subversive work of survival carries within it the memories of generations.
R. Ch. Garcia has a dozen adult, short stories traditionally published in anthologies (Latinos in Lotusland), journals & periodicals. His alternate-world novel, The Closet of Discarded Dreams, was honored by the International Latino Book Awards, SF/Fantasy genre. The sci-fi story, “Fatherly, dragonly, motherly . . . love, luck and touch” took 1st Place in Somos en escrito Magazine’s First Annual Extra-Fiction Writing Contest, 2018. His children's fable, in Spanish, was published by Cricket in Revista Iguana magazine.
His writing now focuses on young people to help bring about a future where everyone can be as lucky as he is. His adopted credo: “Give up on the adults!” – P. Bacigalupi
Writing in Northside Denver, Garcia gardens, landscapes, woodworks and cares for cactus and wild birds that visit his wife Carmen's gardens.
Ricardo Tavarez, who hails from Watsonville, California, and now lives in Oakland, has an MFA from San Francisco State. He is part of La Brigada, a collective that organizes the International SF Flor Y Canto Literary Festival. His writing has appeared most recently in the anthologies, Poetry in Flight: Poesía en Vuelo and The City is Already Speaking, the City being San Francisco.
Rosa Martha Villarreal, a Chicana novelist and essayist, is a descendant of the 16th century Spanish and Tlaxcatecan settlers of Nuevo Leon, Mexico. She drew upon her family history in her critically acclaimed novels Doctor Magdalena, Chronicles of Air and Dreams: A Novel of Mexico, and The Stillness of Love and Exile, the latter a recipient of the Josephine Miles PEN Literary Award and a Silver Medalist in the Independent Publishers Book Award (2008). She writes a column, “Tertullian’s Corner,” for Somos en escrito Magazine.
Carmen Baca taught high school and college English for thirty-six years before retiring in 2014. Her command of English and her regional Spanish dialect contributes to her story-telling style. Her debut novel El Hermano published in April of 2017 and became a finalist in the NM-AZ book awards program in 2018. Her third book, Cuentos del Cañón, received first place for short story fiction anthology in 2020 from the same program. To date, she has published 5 books and over 50 short works in online literary magazines and anthologies. She and her husband live a quiet life in the country caring for their animals and any stray cat that happens to come by.
Scott Russell Duncan, a.k.a. Scott Duncan-Fernandez, recently completed The Ramona Diary of SRD, a memoir of growing up Native/Xicano-Anglo and a fantastical tour reclaiming the myths of Mexican California. Scott received his MFA from Mills College in Oakland, California where he now lives and writes. He is senior editor at Somos en escrito Magazine. In 2016 his story “How My Hide Got Color” won San Francisco Litquake’s Short Story Contest. His nonfiction piece “Mexican American Psycho is in Your Dreams” won first place in the 2019 Solstice Literary Magazine Annual Literary Contest. He is at work on a collection of short stories called Mexpocalyptic Tales. See more about his work and publications on Scott’s website www.scottrussellduncan.com.
Gloria Delgado, born and raised in San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury district, is the daughter of a Mexican father and a Hawaii-born Puerto Rican mother. Former resident of Albany, California for over 50 years, she now lives with her husband in a semi-rural area near Santa Fe, New Mexico. She is a longtime researcher in Mexican and Puerto Rican genealogical archives. One of her stories, “Savanna,” was included in the Berkeley Community Memoir Project’s recently published collection, A Wiggle and a Prayer.
Kathleen Alcalá is the author of six books of fiction and nonfiction. Her work has received the Western States Book Award the Governor’s Writers Award, and a Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association Book Award, she received her second Artist Trust Fellowship in 2008, and in 2014 was honored by the national Latinx writers group, Con Tinta. Designated an Island Treasure in the Arts on Bainbridge Island, Kathleen’s work will be included in the PALABRA archive of the Library of Congress.