I will be reading with Claire Ortalda and Diana Garcia on Tuesday, February 26, 2013, at 7:00 p.m., $5.00 Admission
East Village Coffee Lounge, 498 Washington Street, Monterey.
The Monterey Bay Poetry Consortium Presents:
Diana Garcia, Claire Ortalda & Floyd Salas
Tuesday, February 26, 7:00 p.m., $5.00 Admission
East Village Coffee Lounge, 498 Washington Street, Monterey
Floyd Salas is an award-winning author of seven books, including the novels Tattoo the Wicked Cross, What Now My Love, Lay My Body on the Line, and State of Emergency, the memoir Buffalo Nickel, and two books of poetry, Color of My Living Heart and Love Bites: Poetry in Celebration of Dogs and Cats. He was 2002-2003 Regent’s Lecturer at University of California, Berkeley, staff writer for the NBC drama series, Kingpin, and the recipient of California Arts Council, Rockefeller Foundation, NEA, and Eugene F. Saxton fellowships as well as the Joseph Henry Jackson Award, and two outstanding teaching awards from the University of California, Berkeley. Tattoo the Wicked Cross earned a place on the San Francisco Chronicle’s Western 100 List of Best 20th Century Fiction and also, along with Buffalo Nickel, is featured in Masterpieces of Hispanic Literature (HarperCollins 1994). His manuscripts and papers are archived in the Floyd Salas collection in the Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley. www.floydsalas.com
The child of San Joaquin Valley farm workers and a former single mother on welfare, Diana Garcia is a professor in the Division of Humanities and Communication at California State University, Monterey Bay, she co-directs the Creative Writing and Social Action Program and teaches creative writing, contemporary world literatures and Latina-Latino literature. Her collection of poetry, When Living Was a Labor Camp, earned an American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation. In 2005, she was selected for inclusion in the California History Museum’s exhibit on Latinas in the Arts and Sciences. In September 2009, she was the featured poet at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History’s exhibit, “Bittersweet Harvest: Cosecha Amarga, Cosecha Dulce, The Bracero Program 1942-1964.” Her poetry, fiction and essays are included in several anthologies.
An English instructor, reporter, editor and produced playwright, with an M.A. and M.F.A. in the Novel from San Francisco State University, Claire Ortalda’s stories, plays and poems have been published in numerous literary journals. Her short story, “A Village Dog,” was winner of the Georgia State University Fiction Prize. A poem, “Iowa,” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. A short story, “Littlejack,” was winner of the 3rd prize in the national competition of the Hackney Literary Awards. Another short story, “The Blue Dress,” won 3rd prize in the Fugue Fiction Contest and was published in Fugue magazine. A screenplay version of her novel, Shadow Play, achieved semi-finalist status in the Chesterfield Writers Film Project (Paramount Pictures). Her story, “The Exact Meaning of Grief,” was the cover story for the Canadian magazine, Transition, in September, 2005. She is the editor of The Other Side of the Closet (IBS Press) and Financial Sanity (Doubleday). Currently an editor for Narrative Magazine, she is also an officer for PEN Oakland, a chapter of PEN Center USA. www.claireortalda.com
Upcoming Reading: Mar. 26—Dane Cervine and Simon Hunt
For more information, please contact John Laue: (831) 684-0854
Cosponsored by the Monterey Bay Poetry Consortium, Poetry Slow Down on KXRA540
Photo credit: Jeff Pettrill