Luis Alberto Urrea's Blog, page 27
March 2, 2011
New short story in Tin House
Tin House is one of the best literary magazines out there and if you're not a subscriber, you should be! The latest issue, just out this week, features my strange, mysterious short story called Chametla. You can read it on-line by clicking here: Click fiction, then my name. Enjoy!
March 1, 2011
New Nuevo Nouveau
Thanks for your patience. The electro-gnomes are hammering and sanding madly: new website will be up before May. While you wait, won't you join us on Twitter? Twitter.com/Urrealism.
February 12, 2011
The Queen of America
Wanted you all to see the new cover of my sequel to The Hummingbird's Daughter. Titled The Queen of America, she's scheduled for Dec. 2011. I LOVE this cover! What do you think?
January 28, 2011
COMING SOON
We are currently rebuilding luisurrea.com with an all-new design team. Thanks for your patience. We'll be back with fresh new features very soon.
January 1, 2011
1-1-11
And so a new year begins. It was a big 2010 for us at Urrea World Headquarters. I can't even remember what all happened--did I really win an Edgar Award? Did I really get the National Hispanic Cultural Center Award? I know I finished Hummingbird's Daughter II (Queen of America), and we are in the editing process now. I know my graphic novel with Christopher CVardinale came out (MR. MENDOZA'S PAINTBRUSH). Cinderella and I went on book tour. We took the kids to Quintana Roo, Belize, Guatemala and Cozumel. Had soldiers point machine guns at us on a jungle road. Megan graduated high school and we lived in London for a month and scurried over to Paris 'cause ya gotta. And I toured and I toured and I toured.
So. Now. Change.
We have hired a pro web design artist to re-engineer this website. Our dear friend who has handled this for us can't do it right now. So there's a whole tech re-think and redesign. Hope you like it.
Fewer peeps come here since the advent of Facebook and Twitter; we will be adding FB and Tweet feeds to the front page. The blog will still be here, and the archives will remain in place since I seem to have written you a couple of books' worth over the years. I have long promised a Teresita section--photos, documents, etc. Expect that, too.
All kinds of whiz-bang gewgaws.
Thank you for sticking with me all this time. I am starting my new book projects, adding poetry to the work list, writing many notebooks, thinking about Kindle books of cheap-o esoterica you fans might eb interested in. The first effort of 2011 is my story, "The Soutshide Raza Image Federation Corps of Discovery" in this month's ORION magazine. Or you can listen to me read it at orionmagazine.org. Or, if you're feeling iPoddy, you can pick it up on iTunes. I was lying abed when I recorded it. How louche. I tell my FB pals to imagine we're in the ol' sach and I'm reading you a naughty bedtime story. The second effort will be U of AZ's re-reissue of my beloved first novel, IN SEARCH OF SNOW. Between the old hardcover, the trade paperback, and AZ, there have now been four editions of this book. Unbelievable. I am CERTAIN, that since it appeared in 1994, it has racked up an astounding 103 readers! Yes!!! After that, a story in TIN HOUSE, and a story in SAN DIEGO NOIR. Keeping busy, y'all.
I wish you a magical, powerful, unasailable, unflagging, clear-heart, healthy, well-fed, safe, yet daring, productive, poetic, romantic, sexual, spiritual, active, successful, stressless, astonishing year.
MAKE 2011 JUST LIKE HEAVEN.
XXX, L
So. Now. Change.
We have hired a pro web design artist to re-engineer this website. Our dear friend who has handled this for us can't do it right now. So there's a whole tech re-think and redesign. Hope you like it.
Fewer peeps come here since the advent of Facebook and Twitter; we will be adding FB and Tweet feeds to the front page. The blog will still be here, and the archives will remain in place since I seem to have written you a couple of books' worth over the years. I have long promised a Teresita section--photos, documents, etc. Expect that, too.
All kinds of whiz-bang gewgaws.
Thank you for sticking with me all this time. I am starting my new book projects, adding poetry to the work list, writing many notebooks, thinking about Kindle books of cheap-o esoterica you fans might eb interested in. The first effort of 2011 is my story, "The Soutshide Raza Image Federation Corps of Discovery" in this month's ORION magazine. Or you can listen to me read it at orionmagazine.org. Or, if you're feeling iPoddy, you can pick it up on iTunes. I was lying abed when I recorded it. How louche. I tell my FB pals to imagine we're in the ol' sach and I'm reading you a naughty bedtime story. The second effort will be U of AZ's re-reissue of my beloved first novel, IN SEARCH OF SNOW. Between the old hardcover, the trade paperback, and AZ, there have now been four editions of this book. Unbelievable. I am CERTAIN, that since it appeared in 1994, it has racked up an astounding 103 readers! Yes!!! After that, a story in TIN HOUSE, and a story in SAN DIEGO NOIR. Keeping busy, y'all.
I wish you a magical, powerful, unasailable, unflagging, clear-heart, healthy, well-fed, safe, yet daring, productive, poetic, romantic, sexual, spiritual, active, successful, stressless, astonishing year.
MAKE 2011 JUST LIKE HEAVEN.
XXX, L
December 17, 2010
Need a Christmas gift?
This afternoon, as part of its 2nd Annual Books are Great Gifts campaign, the Twitter literary community LitChat is sponsoring a charitable book auction featuring signed books from some of your favorite authors. Some you will know, others you SHOULD know. One you do know is me. I will send the winning bidder signed copies of The Hummingbird's Daughter, Into the Beautiful North and Mr.Mendoza's Paintbrush -- plus some cool swag from my treasure box. Sign in this afternoon and bid big!
Thanks!
http://litchat.net/2nd-annual-books-are-great-gifts-campaign/2010bagg-book-auction/
Thanks!
http://litchat.net/2nd-annual-books-are-great-gifts-campaign/2010bagg-book-auction/
December 8, 2010
Lennon
I've been reading so many thoughts about John Lennon and his art and life and death today. Seems that everyone recalls that bad day--like the day JFK was slaughtered. Where were you?
I was in Tijuana. I was in a place called The Barrio of Shallow Graves. Great name for a neighborhood. Bad place to live.
It was night. I have written about this before. There was a young girl whose face was covered with impetigo sores. She lived in a dirt canyon with no electricity or running water. There was a broken refrigerator at the top of the slope with a pile of human excrement inside, sitting on the shelf like some hideous dessert. Gang-bangers filled the dark alleys around the girl's house, and they had tried to explode our vehicle by putting a lit cherry bomb in the gas tank.
I was working for Pastor Von in those days. Translator. Bringing words to the teeming, silenced peopel of the canyon. And medicine. It was pretty direct--the girl's scabs had to be broken through so the medicine could get into the face-mange that was disfiguring her. I held her as the missionaries scrubbed that bloddy patch on her face and broke her heart. It was torture, let's face it. She writhed and cried and begged me to stop them, but I held her against my chest and promised her it would be all right.
Sure, we healed her. But was it all right? Did her world improve? Did her face? Maybe for a while. You do your best, and you hope. Right? Heal the sick, isn't that what the work is supposed to be? Feed the hungry? Clothe the naked? Comfort the widow? We were solid on every level, and her mother was a widow to boot. Covered on all the God-chores. My little task was also this: give voice to the voiceless.
Got home stinking of poverty. I had that orphanage stink on me too--pee and dogs and spoiled food and hair oil. Baby shit. I'd be checking myself for lice later. But I walked in my door at midnight and a voice in the dark called out: "Did you hear about John Lennon?"
That's where I was and what I was doing when I heard. The world did not get better. And later, when I went to see family in Sinaloa, I saw this painted on a wall: LENNON DON'T LET ME DOWN. It wasn't Lennon who failed.
I was in Tijuana. I was in a place called The Barrio of Shallow Graves. Great name for a neighborhood. Bad place to live.
It was night. I have written about this before. There was a young girl whose face was covered with impetigo sores. She lived in a dirt canyon with no electricity or running water. There was a broken refrigerator at the top of the slope with a pile of human excrement inside, sitting on the shelf like some hideous dessert. Gang-bangers filled the dark alleys around the girl's house, and they had tried to explode our vehicle by putting a lit cherry bomb in the gas tank.
I was working for Pastor Von in those days. Translator. Bringing words to the teeming, silenced peopel of the canyon. And medicine. It was pretty direct--the girl's scabs had to be broken through so the medicine could get into the face-mange that was disfiguring her. I held her as the missionaries scrubbed that bloddy patch on her face and broke her heart. It was torture, let's face it. She writhed and cried and begged me to stop them, but I held her against my chest and promised her it would be all right.
Sure, we healed her. But was it all right? Did her world improve? Did her face? Maybe for a while. You do your best, and you hope. Right? Heal the sick, isn't that what the work is supposed to be? Feed the hungry? Clothe the naked? Comfort the widow? We were solid on every level, and her mother was a widow to boot. Covered on all the God-chores. My little task was also this: give voice to the voiceless.
Got home stinking of poverty. I had that orphanage stink on me too--pee and dogs and spoiled food and hair oil. Baby shit. I'd be checking myself for lice later. But I walked in my door at midnight and a voice in the dark called out: "Did you hear about John Lennon?"
That's where I was and what I was doing when I heard. The world did not get better. And later, when I went to see family in Sinaloa, I saw this painted on a wall: LENNON DON'T LET ME DOWN. It wasn't Lennon who failed.
December 1, 2010
That Was the Year That Was
I'm leaving for Santa Fe soon. I know, I know--I said I was through for the year. But one more human rights event. Then I'll be done for 2010. What a year! Wow. How do you figure out a year where you started on Mayan pyramids and in Guatemalan caves with manatee skeletons stuck in the walls above your head, and book tours, and finishing Hummingbird II, and winning an Edgar Award and being named Distinguished Professor at your day job? Crazy, man. As my surfer buds used to say in San Diego: a for sure blow-mind.
It is becoming a habit to make lists at the end of the year. A habit for me, at least. I usually post all my travel dates. Fans seem to like to see what I'm listening to on ye olde iPod. Some fans like to know what poetry I'm reading. I can't even begin to remember the books I read this year.
So as a wrap-up of this year, and a start to the Urrealist list-making season, I offer you the itinerary for 2010. I don't know what 2011 will hold. But I know it'll end with the book tour for Hummingbird II. (Title forthcoming soon.)
January:
New Orleans, Quintana Roo, Guatemala, Belize, Cozumel.
Chicago Book Group
Joliet Public Library, IL
Kennedy Jr High Faculty Reading Group, IL
Joliet Book Event, IL
Phoenix, AZ
Illinois Bilingual Ed Convention, Naperville
February
DePaul LAS Event, IL
Tucson Festival of the Book, AZ
UTexas PA
Fairfield CT One City One Book Events
Portland OR
March
Closing Event, Plainfield IL
Virginia
Yakima, WA
May
Event w Dave Eggers for Ragdale, IL
Glen Ellyn Book Event, IL
Albuquerque, NM
June
BOOK TOUR/B North Paperback:
June 15, Rockport, MA; June 16, So. Hadley, MA; June 17, Portsmouth, NH;
June 19th, Northshire Books, VT; June 21, Cambridge, MA; June 22, Dallas, then Houston,
TX; June 23, Austin, TX; June 24, San Antonio, TX; June 25, Marfa then Alpine, TX;
June 27, Santa Fe, NM; June 28, Albuquerque, NM; June 29, Denver, CO; July 1, Washington DC.
July
London
Reading, Mr. B's Emporium, Bath
France
Squaw Valley, CA
August
Squaw Valley, cont.
September
Brooklyn Book Festival
Laredo, TX, One Book One City events
October
North Carolina
Sacramento State, CA
Jeff Bezos Campfire Event, Santa Fe, NM
November
Northern Trust West Coast Lecture Tour:
La Jolla, Rancho Santa Fe, Palm Springs, Newport Beach, Las Vegas,
Santa barbara, Beverly Hills
David Taylor Book launch, Chicago
December
Santa Fe
Keepin' busy.
It is becoming a habit to make lists at the end of the year. A habit for me, at least. I usually post all my travel dates. Fans seem to like to see what I'm listening to on ye olde iPod. Some fans like to know what poetry I'm reading. I can't even begin to remember the books I read this year.
So as a wrap-up of this year, and a start to the Urrealist list-making season, I offer you the itinerary for 2010. I don't know what 2011 will hold. But I know it'll end with the book tour for Hummingbird II. (Title forthcoming soon.)
January:
New Orleans, Quintana Roo, Guatemala, Belize, Cozumel.
Chicago Book Group
Joliet Public Library, IL
Kennedy Jr High Faculty Reading Group, IL
Joliet Book Event, IL
Phoenix, AZ
Illinois Bilingual Ed Convention, Naperville
February
DePaul LAS Event, IL
Tucson Festival of the Book, AZ
UTexas PA
Fairfield CT One City One Book Events
Portland OR
March
Closing Event, Plainfield IL
Virginia
Yakima, WA
May
Event w Dave Eggers for Ragdale, IL
Glen Ellyn Book Event, IL
Albuquerque, NM
June
BOOK TOUR/B North Paperback:
June 15, Rockport, MA; June 16, So. Hadley, MA; June 17, Portsmouth, NH;
June 19th, Northshire Books, VT; June 21, Cambridge, MA; June 22, Dallas, then Houston,
TX; June 23, Austin, TX; June 24, San Antonio, TX; June 25, Marfa then Alpine, TX;
June 27, Santa Fe, NM; June 28, Albuquerque, NM; June 29, Denver, CO; July 1, Washington DC.
July
London
Reading, Mr. B's Emporium, Bath
France
Squaw Valley, CA
August
Squaw Valley, cont.
September
Brooklyn Book Festival
Laredo, TX, One Book One City events
October
North Carolina
Sacramento State, CA
Jeff Bezos Campfire Event, Santa Fe, NM
November
Northern Trust West Coast Lecture Tour:
La Jolla, Rancho Santa Fe, Palm Springs, Newport Beach, Las Vegas,
Santa barbara, Beverly Hills
David Taylor Book launch, Chicago
December
Santa Fe
Keepin' busy.
November 21, 2010
It Is Finished
I never thought I'd get here. The road was long and twisty, full of danger and heart-break. It hjas been 26 years--I have had an entire writing career while on this journey. Got a wife, divorced that wife, met my beloved, married again, got a family, moved all around the country. Yes, Hummingbird's Daughter II, the sequel, is done. the teresita Saga--my version of it--is finished.
Others want to tell it; bless them. Some folks "channel" Teresita; go, baby. I have met several people who "are" Teresita; reincarnation apparently has gone condo--you can subdivide into many new age people; does it come with cable? Curanderas and medicine people often work with Teresita in their healings; I do not doubt them.
Sandra Cisneros has been saying for years that she was going to write a Teresita book of her own. A helpful amazon.com reviewer says that Teresita was proven by the historical record to be a charlatan and a crook. I have the longest bibliography, I believe, ever accumulated about her and her times. I don't know what historical record the chappie is referring to. But it is no longer my worry.
When I finished the book three days ago, I was simply...stunned. I sat there staring out the window. Not much time to bask (or fester)--I have too many projects left to finish before Christmas. And there are those poems. And those two new novels to write.
But for now, it is finished. I am happy. Hope you will be, too. It'll be available in Fall 2011.
Finally, I did a fun interview this weekend with a sublime little online lit journal. I hope you'll go over there and take a look if you like my stuff.
usedfurniturereview.com.
Others want to tell it; bless them. Some folks "channel" Teresita; go, baby. I have met several people who "are" Teresita; reincarnation apparently has gone condo--you can subdivide into many new age people; does it come with cable? Curanderas and medicine people often work with Teresita in their healings; I do not doubt them.
Sandra Cisneros has been saying for years that she was going to write a Teresita book of her own. A helpful amazon.com reviewer says that Teresita was proven by the historical record to be a charlatan and a crook. I have the longest bibliography, I believe, ever accumulated about her and her times. I don't know what historical record the chappie is referring to. But it is no longer my worry.
When I finished the book three days ago, I was simply...stunned. I sat there staring out the window. Not much time to bask (or fester)--I have too many projects left to finish before Christmas. And there are those poems. And those two new novels to write.
But for now, it is finished. I am happy. Hope you will be, too. It'll be available in Fall 2011.
Finally, I did a fun interview this weekend with a sublime little online lit journal. I hope you'll go over there and take a look if you like my stuff.
usedfurniturereview.com.
October 29, 2010
The End of '10
"You wander from room to room hunting for the diamond necklace that is already around your neck." -- Rumi
The year is ending, and I am finishing the sequel to Hummingbird's Daughter. Yes! Done! And I am about to wander from a few more rooms to a few other rooms. Leaving for the last tour events for 2010. Good God, Y'all! As James Brown was heard to say.
What a year. Anyway, will be sneaking around the west coast doing luncheonas and fab dinners. Sorry, but there are no big public events. Though maybe I'll see you in a hotel lobby or a beanery. I'll be in San Diego, Palm Springs, Newport Beach, Las Vegas, Santa Barbara and Beverly Hills. While out there, will have a fun time at CBS studios talking to some buds about TV ideas. Why not. Hollywood meetings are a way to waste time and have some laughs.
Back in time to teach class and stagger into Thanksgiving. After that, sleep till Christmas.
See you at Barney's Beanery--I'll be close to the window, eating an omelette.
The year is ending, and I am finishing the sequel to Hummingbird's Daughter. Yes! Done! And I am about to wander from a few more rooms to a few other rooms. Leaving for the last tour events for 2010. Good God, Y'all! As James Brown was heard to say.
What a year. Anyway, will be sneaking around the west coast doing luncheonas and fab dinners. Sorry, but there are no big public events. Though maybe I'll see you in a hotel lobby or a beanery. I'll be in San Diego, Palm Springs, Newport Beach, Las Vegas, Santa Barbara and Beverly Hills. While out there, will have a fun time at CBS studios talking to some buds about TV ideas. Why not. Hollywood meetings are a way to waste time and have some laughs.
Back in time to teach class and stagger into Thanksgiving. After that, sleep till Christmas.
See you at Barney's Beanery--I'll be close to the window, eating an omelette.
