Bronwyn Mauldin's Blog, page 11

GuerrillaReads No. 42: Chema Guijarro

Guerrilla reader Chema Guijarro grew up between Calexico, CA, and Mexicali, B.C., his fiction focuses on the border region, the immigrant and emigrant experience and Latin-American culture. In this video, he reads from his short story As the Flames Rose, which appears in the anthology You Don't Have a Clue: Latino Mystery Stories for Teens.

To find more of his work, check out Guijarro's blog and Twitter feed.

Tagged: author, Celebrating Words Festival, Chema Guijarro, flames, gangs, guerrilla, literature, reading, short story

GuerrillaReads No. 41: Jenny Toune

Guerrilla reader Jenny Toune is a poet, performer, yogi, tap dancer and drummer. She's been published in various anthologies, including the Award Winning Australian Writing 2011. She's currently working on her first poetry ebook and full-length manuscript.

Toune describes herself as "self-taught, self-funded, self-obsessed, experimental, experiential, expounder of the word and the beat."

As many of the best poets are.

More about Toune aka "Red Uncensored" on Facebook.

Tagged: Australia, author, cemetery, guerrilla, Jenny Toune, literature, poet, poetry, reading, Red Uncensored, wake, writing

GuerrillaReads No. 40: Jen Hofer

Today's guerrilla reader is Jen Hofer, poet, translator, urban cyclist and more. Here she reads several poems from her translation of Myriam Moscona's Negro marfil (Ivory Black), from indie publisher Les Figues Press. As she tells us in the video, this book itself is a visual object to accompany the poetry on the page.

In her essay, Suspension of Belief: Thoughts on Translation as Subversive Speech, Hofer says this:

How can we become aware of what there is to see in what we do not see? We become entrenched; we need instigations, provocations, to be pried out of wherever it is we land most comfortably. Translation functions to change the pitch or tone at which we live: the white noise of "the normal" becomes audible in the new scale a foreign body traces. Translation reminds us that context is everything — as is content, as is form.

Read Hofer's bio, or check out her website-in-waiting.

Tagged: author, guerrilla, Jen Hofer, Les Figues Press, literature, Myriam Moscona, poetry, reading, translation, writing

GuerrillaReads No. 39: Joe Cepeda

Joe Cepeda is the award-winning illustrator of more than twenty children's books. His work has received an American Library Association 2002 Pura Belpre' Honor Award and the Recognition of Merit Award for 2000 from the George G. Stone Center for Children's Books.

In a recent interview, Cepeda talking about movement and action in children's book illustrations:

Making a picture book is making a small movie. You need action scenes, as well as moments to introduce a character, close up shots, contemplative scenes, chase scenes, sad pictures.. etc. There's some level of "action" in every image. Because a character is standing in the middle of an empty room, doesn't mean there is no action there. Perhaps tilting the characters head to look over his shoulder offers a sense of fear, anxiety… tension. A clenched fists alludes to anger. There's always action.

In this video, Cepeda does a guerrilla reading from a book he both wrote and illustrated, The Swing. You can see more of his work on his website.

Tagged: author, Celebrating Words Festival, children's books, guerrilla, Joe Cepeda, literature, reading, swing, writing

GuerrillaReads No. 38: Reyna Grande

Today's guerrilla reader, Reyna Grande, reads from her award-winning novel, Across a Hundred Mountains. This book won the 2010 Latino Books Into Movies Award, a 2007 American Book Award, and the 2006 El Premio Aztlan Literary Award. It was chosen by Eastern Connecticut as its 2007 "One Book/One Region" selection and in 2010 the city of Watsonville, CA selected it for its "On the Same Page" community reads program.

In an interview with ¡LatinoLA!, Grande said this about her work:

I write about things that I care about, that matter to me. The immigrant experience is one of them. Right now I am working on a memoir in which I write about my childhood in Mexico, living in poverty, being raised by my grandmother because my parents were here in the U.S. working. I write about what it was like to come here as an illegal immigrant, and the difficulties of trying to close the gap created by eight years of separation between me and my father. So to answer the question, yes, I do plan to continue writing about immigration and families, among other things. I am always looking for new ideas and topics. One has to grow as a writer, and one way to do that is to take chances and try new things.

Find more on Grande's website, Facebook and Twitter.

Tagged: author, Celebrating Words Festival, guerrilla, immigrant experience, immigration, Latina, Latino, literature, Mexican-American, Mexico, mountains, novel, reading, Reyna Grande, writing

GuerrillaReads No. 37: Naomi Hirahara

Author Naomi Hirahara has deep roots in both Southern California and Japan. She's written nonfiction, mysteries, middle grades lit and journalism for locally acclaimed Rafu Shimpo.

In this guerrilla reading, she takes us back to the first book in her Edgar Award-winning Mas Arai mystery series, Summer of the Big Bachi.

In an interview with NPR, Hirahara explained her crime-solving hero this way:

"I'm basically making a character like my father a hero," Hirahara admits. "I think all the times I complained that my dad was a gardener and we couldn't afford this trip or that trip, I'm trying to make up for it by creating this heroic, iconic figure that's underestimated."

For more, visit Hirahara's website, or follow her on Twitter @gasagasagirl.

Tagged: author, bachi, Celebrating Words Festival, gardener, guerrilla, Japanese-American, literature, mystery, Naomi Hirahara, reading, writing

GuerrillaReads No. 36

Got a sneak preview of the fabulous new Dinosaur Hall at the LA County Natural History Museum last night. While I was there, I did this guerrilla reading from James Michener's Centennial, a book that (like so many of his novels) traces the history of a fictional city all the way back to the primordial goo.

Sound quality is a little iffy. I shot and edited the entire video on my iPad. Listen carefully for the sound of dinosaurs roaring in the background!

Tagged: author, Centennial, dinosaur, guerrilla, James Michener, literature, natural history museum, NHMLA, novel, reading, writing

GuerrillaReads No. 35: Alicia Gaspar de Alba

Alicia Gaspar de Alba is the author of three novels, two collections of poetry and a short story collection. In this guerrilla reading, she reads from her mystery Desert Blood: The Juárez Murders. This book took both the Lambda Literary Award for Best Lesbian Novel and the Latino Book Award for Best English-language Mystery in 2005. Her novels have been translated into Spanish, German, and Italian.

You can learn more about Alicia and her work on her website.

Tagged: Alicia Gaspar de Alba, author, Celebrating Words Festival, desert, guerrilla, Juárez, literature, mystery, reading, writing

GuerrillaReads No. 34: Dani Dixon

In this episode of GuerrillaReads, Dani Dixon reads from her forthcoming thriller, Precedent. In true guerrilla style, Dixon ends her reading with a startling cliffhanger.

Dixon is Creative Director at Tumble Creek Press and author of their comic book series, 13. More info available, whether you to prefer to like or follow.

Tagged: author, Celebrating Words Festival, Dani Dixon, guerrilla, literature, novel, precedent, reading, thriller, writing

GuerrillaReads No. 33: James Luna

Another fun children's book guerrilla reading, this one by author James Luna. Illustrations in his bilingual book, The Runaway Piggy / El cochinito fugitivo are by fellow guerrilla reader Laura Lacámara.

If you need a little Mexican style hot chocolate to go with your delicious cochinito cookies, check out the Kid Stuff page on Luna's website.

Run, little piggy, run!

Tagged: author, Celebrating Words Festival, children's books, cochinito, guerrilla, James Luna, literature, little piggy, reading, runaway, writing