Many writing workshops are overpriced and do not serve our Mexican American/Chicano community. Our storytellers, poets, and thinkers are not nurtured or given as many opportunities and so our voice as a people becomes drowned out or dictated by others. Palabras del Pueblo Writing Workshop is intended be financially accessible for raza to learn to better express themselves so our existence and values can be heard with clarity with no doubts to what they are and what we are. We intend the workshop to be a place to acquire tools, inspiration, and contacts for Chicana/o/x writers. When, WhereClasses will be held online on two long weekends (Friday, Saturday and Sunday): July 22-24 and 29-31 during the summer of 2022. Applying is free, the cost is $100 once accepted. 18 years old and up. Deadline to apply is July 1, 2022. Classes OfferedWe are offering three classes with a maximum of ten students per class Fiction: Learn the art of crafting fiction with author Rosa Martha Villarreal. Creative Nonfiction: Write and learn about the art of the personal essay, expository essay with a team of three instructors, Berte Reyes, Dr. Ernesto Mireles and Dave Weinstock. Students should come with three ideas they can write about. Poetry: Learn about the art and expression of poetry with Berkeley poet laureate Rafael Jesús González. Fiction Class ![]() Rosa Martha Villarreal, a retired Adjunct Professor at Consumnes River College in Sacramento, California, is author of several novels important to American literature, including Doctor Magdalena, The Stillness of Love and Exile, and Chronicles of Air and Dreams, and a children's book, The Adventures of Wyglaf the Wyrm. Nonfiction Class ![]() Ernesto Todd Mireles, MSW. Ph.D. has worked as a student, community, union, and electoral organizer. Coordinator of the Frantz Fanon Community Strategy Center at Prescott College, he organized for the United Farm Workers, United Steelworkers and American Federation of Teachers. Mireles is the co-director of the Social Justice Community Organizing Masters program where he teaches community organizing. He holds an MSW in organizational and community practice and a PhD American Studies from Michigan State University. His book Insurgent Aztlan was awarded an International Latino Book Award this year placing second in the Best Politica/Current Affairs category. Mireles does a weekly podcast called The Reality Dysfunction and is completing a documentary about student organizing called War of the Flea. ![]() Berte Reyes is a PhD candidate in Rhetoric, Composition, and the Teaching of English at the University of Arizona. Between studying hate and video game communities, they write fiction and poetry. They also cause a ruckus whenever necessary. ![]() Born in Evanston, Illinois, Dave Weinstock grew up on a family-owned, organic dairy goat farm in southeastern Pennsylvania. He would join the first and second of the three unions he would belong to in his lifetime while earning the money to pay for his college education at Penn State University. The third union, the Michigan Education Association, he would join years later when he became a journalism professor at Central Michigan University. Three months after graduating from Penn State, Weinstock joined the Pennsylvania State Grange, then the state's largest farm organization, as its public relations director. Two of the three state Grange masters he served in that role taught him how state and federal government and land grant universities functioned and how to successfully execute local, state and federal political agendas. This knowledge would inform the legislative beat he covered for his next employer, Michigan Farmer Magazine, in Lansing, Michigan. There, he won four reporting and two photojournalism awards, added the livestock and forestry beats to his work history and left as the magazine's managing editor. In his next post, he parlayed an adjunct teaching position at Michigan State University into ultimately being admitted to its Mass Media PhD program, which eventually awarded him an integrated PhD in journalism and telecommunication. The next 20 years of his life would reveal his second obsession beyond journalism: teaching it to college students, which he did at three universities in Michigan and Texas. His community service includes two years on MeXicanos 2070's board of directors, four years on a Michigan township planning commission, six years as a Michigan 4-H livestock club leader and four years on two synagogue boards of directors. Currently, he splits his professional life between two glorious endeavors: building the Colegio Chicanos del Pueblo and continuing to honor the U.S. Constitution and the First Amendment with his continued pursuit of journalism and journalism education. Poetry Class ![]() Rafael Jesús González, Prof. Emeritus of literature and creative writing, was born and raised biculturally/bilingually in El Paso, Texas/Cd. Juárez, Chihuahua, and taught at University of Oregon, Western State College of Colorado, Central Washington State University, University of Texas El Paso (Visiting Professor of Philosophy), and Laney College, Oakland, California where he founded the Dept. of Mexican & Latin-American Studies. Also visual artist, he has exhibited in the Oakland Museum of California, the Mexican Museum of San Francisco, and others in the U.S. and Mexico. Nominated four times for a Pushcart prize, he was honored by the National Council of Teachers of English and Annenberg CPB for his writing in 2003. In 2013 he received a César E. Chávez Lifetime Award and was honored by the City of Berkeley with a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 13th Annual Berkeley Poetry Festival 2015. He was named the first Poet Laureate of Berkeley in 2017. His poetry collection Chalchihuixochitl, Flor de Piedra Verde, Flower of Jade was published by Nomadic Press in 2022. Visit http://rjgonzalez.blogspot.com/. Who we arePalabras del Pueblo Writing Workshop is a collaboration with Somos en escrito Literary Foundation and MeXicanos 2070.
Somos en escrito Literary Foundation is a small press and literary magazine dedicated to nurturing and raising awareness of raza writers. Started by Armando Rendon in 2009, several of its publications have placed in the International Latino Book Awards. MeXicanos 2070 is a thinkcollective dedicated to preserving and enhancing Mexican American culture.
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Born January 21, 1929 Died April 19, 2022 The Editors of Somos en escrito Magazine extend their condolences to the family and friends of Rolando Hinojosa-Smith. Rolando Hinojosa has been one of the most prolific Chicano writers over the past 50 years with much of his work set against the backdrop of a fictional small town, Klail City, that he created in south Texas. He sought to portray his hometown, Mercedes, Texas, from the perspective of being one with the land and the people. At the same time, he projected the universality of life along the border. An essayist, poet and teacher as well, Rolando taught writing as Ellen Clayton Garwood professor at the University of Texas at Austin. The National Book Critics Circle honored him in 2013 with its Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award. Hinojosa was the first Chicano author to receive the prestigious Premio Casa de las Américas award for Klail City y sus alrededores (Klail City), and received the third Premio Quinto Sol Annual Prize in 1973 for his work, Estampas del Valle y otras obras. In a lengthy interview published in Americana E-Journal of American Studies in Hungary, Vol. IX, Number 1, Spring 2013, he told the interviewer when asked what he considered the most relevant, either practical or theoretical, aspects that he felt important to share with students: “I teach creative writing at my home institution along with other courses, but in creative writing, I stress reading; we began the class sponsored by Graz University stressing reading. Why? Because reading is imperative; one begins to read, enjoys it, is captivated by it, and one day, begins to write, to create, based, of course, on reading. Some people think that imagination is everything. It isn’t; imagination can only take one so far; one needs to read and to learn from reading and living one’s life and learning how others live.” Is there any other practical wisdom, the interviewer asked, and Hinojosa declared: “Yes. I advise beginning writers to use clear, everyday language. To try not to show off how much one knows. An experienced reader will see through the phoniness of using high-toned language when none is called for. Writing is not about self-aggrandizement, that’s for amateurs. A professional has a story to tell, and learning how to tell it without resorting to pointing to oneself is an important part of writing.” Here is a list of his major works, some in English only, others as “renditions” as he referred to his translations of his Spanish or English writings. We Happy Few. 2006. Dear Rafe/Mi querido Rafa. 2005. Ask a Policeman. 1998. Estampas del Valle. 1994. El condado de Belken: Klail City. 1994. The Useless Servants. 1993. Los amigos de Becky. 1991. Korea Liebes Lieder/Korean Love Songs. 1991. Becky and her Friends. 1990. Klail City. 1987. This Migrant Earth. 1987. Claros varones de Belken. 1986. Dear Rafe. 1985. Partners in Crime. 1985. The Valley. 1983. (Hinojosa's own translation of Estampas del Valle) Rites and Witnesses. 1982. Crossing the Line: The Construction of a Poem. 1981. Mi querido Rafa. 1981. Klail City und Umgebung. 1981. Generaciones y semblanzas. 1979. Generaciones, notas y brechas. 1978. Korean Love Songs. 1978. Klail City y sus alrededores. 1976. Estampas del Valle y otras obras. 1973. Chicanofuturism is now!The title sums up the underlying roots of this collection; it takes Spanish, Nahuatl and English to tell the whole tale. This collection is a coming out party for raza re-interpreters of the past, the now and the future.
The line-up of authors includes: Ernest Hogan, Mario Acevedo, Frank S. Lechuga, Martin Hill Ortiz, Pedro Iniguez, Nicholas Belardes, Armando Rendón, Lizz Huerta, Emmanuel Valtierra, Rios de La Luz, Beatrice Pita, Rosaura Sánchez, R. Ch. Garcia, Ricardo Tavarez, Rosa Martha Villarreal, Carmen Baca, Scott Russell Duncan, Gloria Delgado, and Kathleen Alcalá. TO SCHEDULE INTERVIEWS, READINGS, MORE INFORMATION Contact: editors@somosenescrito.com Listen to a discussion of El Porvenir, ¡Ya! featuring top writers from the collection on the Reality Dysfunction podcast. El Porvenir, ¡Ya! is available in paperback and e-book formats through online distributors, such as Amazon, your favorite bookstore, and at the Somos en escrito online Tienda/Store. Check Bookshop and Barnes & Noble in the coming weeks. Order your copy now and be a part of Chicanofuturism. JOIN US |
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