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Viewing: Blog Posts Tagged with: Latina authors, Most Recent at Top [Help]
Results 1 - 7 of 7
1. Guest Columnist: Lisa Alvarado interviews Luz Maria Umpierre.

Lisa Alvarado - Interview with Luz Maria Umpierre


Luz Maria Umpierre has wrought a legacy, a challenge, a history, a love letter, a sinuous and sentient record of personal identity, revealing the crosshatched scars and singing victories of a warrior, the yielding body and the body politic in
"I'm still standing- 30 Years of Poetry -available through her website http://luzmaumpierre.com

"Luz Maria Umpierre is, quite simply, one of my heroes in a postmodern world that insists on rid­ding us of icons and pedestals in an attempt to level all people and institu­tions. Paradoxically, some institutions seem to merit such debasement when they never miss an opportunity to hound the historically marginal­ized and alternative voices out of the academy." Dr.Eric Pennington (Seton Hall)

She is an established scholar in the fields of Puerto Rican, Caribbean, Latina/o Studies, Poetry, and Gender Studies, with multiple publications in leading journals, including Hispania, Latin American Theatre Review, Revista do Estudios Hispánicos, Bilingual Review, Chasqui, Explicación do Textos Literarios, Chicana/Latina Studies and The Americas Review. Co-founder of the journal, Third Woman. Also published in internet journals, including La Acera, Diálogo Digital, Cruce and La Bloga.

Author of two books of literary criticism, ten collections of bilingual poetry, numerous book chapters and over 50 articles of literary criticism on Latin American scholars and writers from several generations, including a seminal article on writers and migration published in MELUS in 2002 and currently included in an anthology of essays in honor of Isabel Allende.

Her collected works and personal papers currently housed at De Paul University, Latina rare book collection housed at Bryn Mawr College.

She is recognized internationally as an authority on the interdisciplinary study of Literature, the Social Sciences, History and Language, especially regarding race, culture, gender identity and ethnicity. Complete list of publications available on request.

What do you believe is the purpose of poetry?
The purpose of poetry is to liberate the spirit, our soul, so that it has a concrete expression that is palpable. And as Julia Alvarez said in one of my favorite poems of all times, to be able to say "Whoever reads this poem, touches a woman." I am hoping that I am quoting her correctly because my copy of her book is at my rare book collection at Bryn Mawr. I can and will accept to be corrected in my quote but not in my idea. LOL

What do you consider to be "Latino/a" themes?
All themes are Latina themes. It is the vision or the approach we take as Latinas what gives them a sabor or authenticity that is ours. For example, many years ago I took Vanguardista poetry which was highly non-politicized and turned it into political poetry. From there, for example, emerged my Poemas Concretistas.

To say that there are Latina themes is to reduce us. Granted there are subject matters such as identity that we explore more than other groups of writers but I would not say that there are Latina themes and non Latina themes. All themes are human themes and that is overall the most important theme to me.

Describe the intersection of sexual identity and culture as it lives in your writing?
I learned from Audre Lorde years and years ago that I cannot be asked to divide my Self into separate pieces of identity and ignore some in favor of others. That to me would be mutilation. I refuse to mutilate my rich identity for the sake of pleasing the eye of a beholder or for an aesthetics of a political correctdness of beauty. Thus all aspects of my identity and culture live in harmony in my works.

What would you say to critics of your lesbian-identified work?
That they get a life and start living in the 21st. century. I never forced them to leave their heterosexist and nationalist macho agenda views through meanness, non inclusion or actual shuning. On the contrary, I questioned them publicly and made my dissenting opinions known to them. I did not go back stabbing them, making calls to bad mouth them into being denied jobs, I did not refuse to teach them in my classes. To the contrary, I included them because I wanted to have an open dialogue about difference. But "I'm Still Standing" as the only dancer on that inclusion floor because some of these people are so petty that they refuse to engage me in public and face to face or, as Lorraine Sutton marvelously said in one of her poems: "to cunt-front" me.

How has academia enhanced/impinged upon your creative process?
They have always wanted to deny me a claim to my poetry as an academic achievement. However, I have not allowed them to infringe on my freedom to write. I have used my academic struggles precisely to question antics and tactics in academia and make fun, mock and criticize their elitism and snobbery.

Who are some authors who move you and why?
 Adrienne Rich, her book The Dream of A Common Language has been my Bible since the 1980s. Nemir Matos Cintron has poems in her collections A través del aire y del fuego pero no del cristal and in Aliens in NYC that have made me cry time and time again because of her portrayal of genuine human identity angst. I recently re/read a poem by Ana Castillo entitled: "I Ask The Impossible" and I am afraid that I ruined the Thai Lemon Tilapia dish that I was eating while reading it because I began to cry uncontrollably. I feel that we have all have wanted to be loved that way and her poem is a voicing of a human need that I had never read exposed in poetry. Lorde also moved me with some of her poems on women. Marge Piercy's book The Moon is Always Female has some of my favorite poems of all times because of her delving into what constitutes to be a strong woman. Julia de Burgos, of course she is part of our collective unconscious as Puerto Ricans. The theme of the river in her poetry and the sea attracts me.

What are some thoughts you would share with newer poetas/poetisas/Nuyorican poets?
To remember that many people paved a path for them and they should be honored, not bullied, harassed, shunned and most importantly, not disrespected.

I think Puerto Rican poets of the younger generation have no respect towards their elders, their sages, those who broke a path for them now to enjoy. They are not like other Latina groups. I am marveled by the respect of Mexican Americans towards their wiser older Latinas/Latinos something that is totally lacking among young poets be they Puerto Rican or Nuyorican.

I would like to let them know that one day they will inevitably be older and if they do not change their ways and attitudes, they too will be the subject of disrespect.

What sustains your creative and spiritual longevity?
The power to love, to find love, to see everything with fresh eyes, to be able to marvel at beauty and to be passionate about living. But also, as the poem says: "To be of use."

3 Comments on Guest Columnist: Lisa Alvarado interviews Luz Maria Umpierre., last added: 9/8/2012
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2. Children's Book Week, Day 3: New YA paranormal romance series by Latina author Alisa Valdes


Children's Book Week continues with Alisa Valdes...

Bestselling author Alisa Valdes Rodriguez is best known for her women's fiction. Now she's also dabbling into the young adult market with this her new paranormal romance series, The Kindred. The first book, Temptation, hit the shelves on April 24th. I read the first three chapters free on Kindle and I have to say, the story is quite engrossing. I plan to download the complete book soon. 

Let's support this talented Latina author! Be sure to check out her website and blog and read an excerpt of her newest novel, Temptation

About Alisa Valdes:

Alisa Valdes is a New York Times and USA Today best­selling author of six commercial women's fiction novels, including the dirty girls social club. She has a Masters in journalism from Columbia and is a Pulitzer-nominated, award-winning former staff writer for the Boston Globe and Los Angeles Times. Alisa has written and sold pilot scripts to Nickelodeon, NBC, and Lifetime Television, as well as a teen crossover feature film based on The Kindred.
Book description:

His touch was electric.
His eyes were magnetic.
His lips were a temptation. . . .
But was he real?
Shane is near death after crashing her car on a long stretch of empty highway in rural New Mexico when she is miraculously saved by a mysterious young man who walks out of nowhere. She feels an instant energy between them, both a warmth that fills her soul and a tingle that makes her shiver. But who, or what, is he? For the first time in her life, she believes in the term "soul mates"�Travis is her destiny, and she is his. But she soon discovers that Travis is dead and strict rules govern kindred spirits of different dimensions. Even a kiss could destroy both their souls. And while Travis is almost impossible to resist, temptation proves to be the kindest enemy they encounter.
In this part romance, part supernatural thriller, true love discovers it may not be able to surpass all—especially the power of pure evil.


Don't forget to visit the other participating Guardian Angel Publishing authors:
6 Comments on Children's Book Week, Day 3: New YA paranormal romance series by Latina author Alisa Valdes, last added: 5/9/2012
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3. WriteGirl: The Power of a Girl and Her Pen

by Estella Gonzalez, guest bloguera

Estella Gonzalez was born and raised in East Los Angeles, which inspires most of her writing. Her work has been anthologized in Latinos in Lotusland: An Anthology of Contemporary Southern California Literature published by Bilingual Press and Kaleidoscope published by Pima Press. Her writing has also appeared in Puerto del Sol, Sandscript and Eleven Eleven.

Back in the 80s I knew I wanted to become a writer when my high school’s literary magazine published one of my stories. It was called “The Brotherhood” and it was about a girl who wanted to infiltrate her crush’s group of male friends so badly, she actually became a boy. Very corny but seeing the story in print and appreciated by my teachers boosted my confidence. Still, I wouldn’t seriously consider pursuing fiction writing until about 15 years later when I finally built up the courage and confidence. For many writers the decision to commit to writing can be harrowing, especially if you’re a writer of color from a working class background. For me it was particularly scary since I didn’t personally know any active Chicano writers and wouldn’t read any Latino literature until well after college. Becoming a writer, a real published writer, seemed like a pipe dream but despite the self-doubt I began writing in earnest and eventually publishing.

Flash forward to 2010 and WriteGirl, a Los Angeles-based volunteer mentoring organization I wish had existed back when I was in high school. WriteGirl provides high school girls a safe, supportive community to express themselves through the exploration of writing including poetry, journalism, songwriting, screen writing, etc. I found this wonderful organization on the Internet when I was looking for a Latina writing group close to East Los Angeles.

Little did I know that WriteGirl would offer a writing group and then some. About once a month I not only get to participate in writing workshops with a group of professional writing women, I also get to mentor enthusiastic high school girls, many of whom are Latina and African-American. And WriteGirl doesn’t mess around. At the organization’s first poetry workshop held at the Miguel Contreras Learning Center, writing began as soon as the girls walked in to the writing space. In this case the cafeteria. After signing in, the girls quickly partnered up with their mentors to write haikus on various topics including love, family, and hunger before they went on to join larger groups of writers to create living tableaus of their poetry. After the group performance, local Angeleno poets Xotchil-Julisa Bermejo and Eloise Klein Healy led us on some invigorating poetry exercises. It was the first time in years that I had written some meaningful poems.

Founded by songwriter, poet and freelance writer Keren Taylor, WriteGirl is an activist feminist writer’s dream. In addition to participa

6 Comments on WriteGirl: The Power of a Girl and Her Pen, last added: 12/13/2010
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4. Review: Waking Up in the Land of Glitter. Art News: Circle of Women Stamp Project

Monday, March 8 observed "International Women's Day. Tuesday's La Bloga extends that observation one additional day with a pair of women-related columns. This way we can have two days for women, and only 363 days not for.


Kathy Cano-Murillo. Waking Up in the Land of Glitter. NY: Grand Central Publishing, 2010.
ISBN: 9780446509244

Circle of Women Stamp Project

Michael Sedano

Kathy Cano-Murillo stands as one of the prime expositors of what I want to term Situation Comedy Literature, though some might say "Chica Lit". The term comes out of my memories of television's "My Little Margie," "Our Miss Brooks," and "I Love Lucy." A woman puts herself in a sticky predicament and by dint of clever machination and blind luck makes everything work out in the end, always leaving its audience with a heart-warming chuckle and a half hour or hour of mindless entertainment.

Covering Waking Up in the Land of Glitter's 302 pages (336 including appendices), requires a little more than an hour, but with the passage of a couple days or a long airplane ride, the reader is sure to be left with the pleasure of largely mindless entertainment. That's a good thing, despite--or because of--the formulaic, almost stereotypic characters and abbreviated plotting.

Three women share a common interest in crafts and crafting. Estrella--Star to everyone but her parents--and Chloe are whitewashed twenty-something Mexican Americans who meet and strike up a mutual animosity. Ofie, Star's best friend, is young thirties basket case who takes refuge in crummy craft projects. Star calls herself an artist but doesn't make art; she books talent into her family's restaurant-cum-gallery and is in love with an accomplished artist. Chloe--Crafty Chloe--is a local television celebrity on the arts beat, "a role model for artistic Latinas". She does a regular crafts spot but secretly hates crafts. Chloe's assistant does all the crafting and seethes in the background as Chloe shines in the klieg lights taking all the credit.

Things fall apart between Star and Theo after she spraypaints happy faces across his masterpiece mosaic mural. Cute as she is, Theo cannot bear the string of vast projects undertaken with half vast ideas that is Star's modus operandi in life. On and off camera, Chloe lives a lie. Sexually manipulated by a sleazy station manager, shacked up with a passionless loser, as well as stealing the assistant's craft creations, to her mind Chloe's ambition justifies her sins. Poor Ofie. Obese, frumpy, a dismal housekeeper, she spends more money on craft supplies than running her suegra-dominated household. Ofie's craft work sounds disastrously pathetic.

The "waking up" part of the title reflects how Star, Chloe, and Ofie come to realizations of the emptiness of their lives and learn to see value in others. Poor Ofie. Her friends laugh about her creations behind her back even as they reinforce her behavior to her face. Learning this truth, she breaks down and cuts herself off from her new-found friends.

Star's irresponsibility comes of being la consentida of hippie new age parents who indulge their only child's every whim, until the grafitti vandalism incident. They fire her from the family business and demand she pay rent to live in their home. Forced to stand on her own two feet she makes small to giant steps, becoming more self-assured by learning to work in mutual respect with peers, especially her chola prima Star had blamed for Star's own misbehavior.

Chloe's awakening comes of realizing that Star and Ofie have a freedom and happiness that Chloe has walled off from her own life, just to be a big teevee personality. Hers is a public humiliation, broadcast all over Phoeni

2 Comments on Review: Waking Up in the Land of Glitter. Art News: Circle of Women Stamp Project, last added: 3/9/2010
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5. Review: Julia Alvarez. Return To Sender.

NY: Knopf, 2009. 
ISBN: 0-375-85838-5

Michael Sedano

Tyler’s family is about to lose their dairy farm after a tractor accident disables dad’s shoulder. Coming hard upon Granpa’s death, and impending college for the elder son, the Paquette family’s ability to work is far short of the farm’s demands for labor. Desperate, they hire three Mexicans, the Cruz brothers. Tyler’s family doesn’t know about the three girls, one about Tyler’s age.

At first, Mom compels Tyler to be neighborly to the girls living down in the trailer. Reluctantly, Tyler complies. As Tyler and Mari develop a deep friendship, Tyler struggles with his contradictions. On one side, as a loyal, law-abiding person, Tyler understands his family is breaking the law. On the other side is what his mother calls the Cruz family, angels.

Further complicating the mix are the two youngest, born-in-the-USA sisters and the interplay this brings within the trailer. The youngsters are so comfortable in English that Papa permits only Spanish language television on the hand-me-down from Granma.

Of everyone in the extended family group, Granma welcomes the Cruz girls with complete abandon. They offer all-day companionship for the seventy-something woman, along with a healthy dose of intercultural communication. But when Granma builds an Ofrenda for Grampa, the family thinks she’s gone and tries to force her into a rest home.

School finds Mari and Tyler in the same class, with a wonderfully humane teacher who speaks up at the annual town meeting and puts down the village curmudgeon. When the family goes on the run from la migra, this old crotchety fellow becomes the fugitives’ best friend and Tyler’s too.

There's an ugly hard edge to the story, but Alvarez pulls the punches. Leave it to a parent to discuss coyotes, slavery, ransom, and torture. When Mari's mother goes missing during a surreptitious crossing into Texas, father and daughters fear the worst but refuse to put Mama's photo on the altar this year.

Constructed in an epistolary style, the gimmick falls apart immediately, in disbelief that an eleven year old child writes like Julia Alvarez! No reader will give a hoot at the transparent failure of the letter / diary ploy. It’s a superb way to subsume narrative requirements to the needs of character and plot, and pulling at heartstrings.

Return to Sender will be an ideal choice for adult bookgroups, but also for those ten and eleven year olds in the family, surrounded as they are by immigrant bashing hysteria. Alvarez puts a personal, human face on the condition. Those intensely pro-immigrant will find the end disturbing. I don’t know if this is a Vermont thing, but Mari’s contentment, and of her self-deported minor citizen sisters, is not the answer.

That's what the second Tuesday of April sounds like. For the past 8 years, paying my taxing due has been a pain, knowing what I was getting for my money. With the new guy in charge, here's hoping the money goes to better days.

To leave a comment on today's review, or any issue, click the Comments counter below. La Bloga welcomes your guest columns. Please click here to discuss how you can be our guest.

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6. Tomás Rivera Conference, Piru Mural

Michael Sedano

Over the past year, I've related the fruition of a dream come true, the conversion of "lost" videotaped performances of important Chicana Chicano poets and writers into modern DVD and web-streaming media. Look for an official announcement from the University of Southern California in the next few weeks on its receipt of the finished product, 39 recordings of such poets as Omar Salinas, rrsalinas, Oscar Acosta, and Tomás Rivera.

Happily, Juan Felipe Herrera and the Tomás Rivera Archives at the University of California Riverside's Tomás Rivera Library acquired a number of photographs I shot back in 1973 at the first Festival de Flor Y Canto, held at USC. I'm happy to report UCR and the Tomás Rivera Archive will be showing these photos in conjunction with the upcoming Tomás Rivera Conference.

Here's news from the Conference website. Please click here for mayor info.

From the Fields to the Stars

22nd Annual Tomás Rivera Conference
April 24th, Friday – Free to the public

Featured Speaker: Ligiah Villalobos

LIGIAH VILLALOBOS is the Writer/Executive Producer of the feature film Under the Same Moon, (La Misma Luna). The film was an Official Selection at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival and became the highest sale for a Spanish-language film in the history of Sundance. Since its release on March 19, 2008 by Fox Searchlight and The Weinstein Company, the film has become the 3rd highest grossing Mexican film and the 6th highest grossing Spanish-language film in the U.S., of all time. The workshops are open to all students and community members at large. Learn from one of the first Latinas to make it into the Hollywood film industry.

In addition to Villallobos' keynote, she leads a TV Workshop and a Screenplay Workshop, as part of the daytime program. See the Conference site for enrollment details.

Day Program 8am-4:15pm, 

Evening Program 6:00-10:00pm

The conference is funded and coordinated by UCR Tomás Rivera Endowment/Department of Creative Writing and co-sponsored by UCR Chicano Student Programs, the Tomás Rivera Library – and Special Collections, CHASS First, Department of Theatre, Palm Desert Graduate Center, Riverside City College-Academic Support Program and the Inlandia Institute of Riverside.



Mural Dedication Mid-April



Join La Bloga friend Carlos Callejo and the City of Piru for the dedication of Callejo's just-completed mural, above.

"The Piru Mural -- A pictorial history of the town and its people." The dedication of the mural to the Piru community takes place on Saturday, April 18 at the mural site, at 10:00 a.m. The site is East of Piru Creek, north of Center Street, on the Piru Camulos Bike Path. From Highway 126, exit Center Street. Park by Piru Motocross.

Help Needed - A Book About the College Experience

I am striking out going through a mental annotated bibliography of Chicana Chicano novels to help fill this request from a bloguero's former student:

I am searching for a fiction book which depicts Latino/a trials and tribulations of young Latina/os trying to go to college.

Have a suggestion? Please click on the Comments counter below.

Bits and pieces for April's initial Tuesday, a day like any other day, except we are here, ¿que no?

La Bloga welcomes your comments on the above, especially a novel about the Chicana Chicano Latina Latino college experience. Click the Comments counter below. La Bloga welcomes guest columnists. When you have a review of a book, an arts or cultural event, or an extended comment or bone to pick with one of La Bloga's daily reviewers, email las blogueras los blogueras with your proposal.

2 Comments on Tomás Rivera Conference, Piru Mural, last added: 4/10/2009
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7. Upcoming Events

Latina Authors Panel & Book Signing
3:00pm Sunday
January 25, 2009

Location:
Los Alamitos/Rossmoor Library
12700 Montecito
Seal Beach, CA


Latina Authors Panel & Book Signing
6:00-9:00pm Thursday
February 5, 2009


Join us in celebrating Libreria Martinez's Grand Re-Opening with Great Literature, Food & Wine Tasting!

Featuring: Sarah Rafael Garcia, Jamie Martinez Wood & Mary Castillo
Guest Moderator: Marcos Najera, Latino Affairs Journalist

Location:
Libreria Martinez
1110 N. Main St.
Santa Ana, CA
(714) 973-7900


Texas Book Tour, Again!
March 4-12th, 2009
Dates & Locations to be announced

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