United States of Writing

Last week we took a little break and I hope you enjoyed my list of things to check out. Beginning this week, I want to highlight the big events: conferences and festivals. As many of you know, we are gearing up for a massive conference, the annual AWP Conference & Bookfair, run by the Association of Writers & Writing Programs, taking place in San Antonio, Texas in March. Poets & Writers and the literary outreach coordinators—Justin, Kelly, and I—will be there so come say hello if you’re at AWP!

Keeping that in mind, I’d like to dedicate some time in this blog to celebrate the literary festivals and conferences that take place here in Houston, including Sin Muros, Comicpalooza, Fade to Black Play Festival, and Zine Fest Houston.

First up, Sin Muros! Now in its third year, Sin Muros: A Latinx Theater Festival is a community-led playwriting festival focused on Texas-based Latinx voices and stories. The festival is put on by Stages, a nonprofit organization and historic theater in Houston, and offers a ton of access to literary craft for emerging artists. In Spanish, sin muros means “without walls” and the festival embodies this theme through its events.

Stages works with community leaders—playwrights, dramatists, poets, and activists—to put together a four-day festival for the public with many free events. Two plays (which are a part of Stages’s regular season) serve as anchors to a series of play readings and poetry readings; a generative, writing workshop (any genre is welcome); a professional development workshop for theater teachers; a children’s play; a town hall meeting focusing on issues Latinx artists face; and a poetry tent filled with booksellers, local literary organizations, and poets. Stages works with several literary and performance organizations to put the festival together, including Tintero Projects, Gente de Teatro, and TEATRX. Some of the work is in English. Some of the work is in Spanish. All of the work is Tejano.

This year’s festival over this past weekend was a great success. Every year it gets larger and larger, and I can’t wait for the next one.

This will be the last in my series of posts exploring the unique platforms that contribute to the literary community in Houston, which have included Nuestra Palabra: Latino Writers Having Their Say, the blogs and podcasts Dear Reader and Bootleg Like Jazz, and the ekphrastic series Words & Art. Today I want to let you know about the Afrofuturism Book Club.

Educator and Detroit native Jaison Oliver founded the Afrofuturism Book Club in 2016 with the hope of building community around a shared interest for fantasy and science and speculative fiction written from a Black perspective. The format is real chill. The group meets monthly to read and discuss short stories by authors like Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Octavia Butler, and Samuel Delany, as well as comic books, films, and television series. I haven’t had a chance to attend a meeting yet, but I know they are happening, because every time I see Jaison post about the book club, I want to kick myself for not attending.

I know from the last invitation I saw online, the book club covered the new HBO television series adaptation of Watchmen for their January meeting. Every month is something new to enjoy! Meetings are usually held at a cozy, local coffee shop and you can sign up to find out more.

This week I want to spotlight the amazing work done by the podcast Bootleg Like Jazz. It’s funny because everyone seems to have ties to Nuestra Palabra—Icess Fernandez Rojas, featured in last week’s post, is a member of the group as am I, and the creator of Bootleg Like Jazz, Terrell Quillin, better known as Q, is the Nuestra Palabra Radio Show’s producer! I have been following the work of Bootleg Like Jazz, aka #bllj, and I love the format and energy behind the podcasting. It’s an interview style format where Q focuses on the Black Diaspora, Afro-Latinidad, and Latinx culture. #bllj covers the arts, music, travel, and books.

I was lucky enough to be tapped for an interview and it was great experience. Q asks all the important questions with a great balance of information about who the artists are and what’s behind the work they are creating. Q has interviewed local writers like Deborah D.E.E.P Mouton and Leslie Contreras Schwartz, Houston’s former and current poets laureate, respectively, and writers outside of Houston like Roberto Carlos Garcia, a New York City poet and author of the collection black / Maybe (Willow Books, 2018).

The podcast started last year and puts out episodes every month. If you are looking for a fresh take on the literary world, then look no further than Bootleg Like Jazz.

Happy New Year! I wanted to kick off 2020 by focusing on what the literary community looks like outside of author readings and book events. This includes groups like Nuestra Palabra: Latino Writers Having Their Say, blogs and podcasts such as Dear Reader and Bootleg Like Jazz, ekphrastic experiences like the workshop and reading series Words & Art, and book lover groups like the Afrofuturism Book Club.

Today I want to spotlight the work of Nuestra Palabra: Latino Writers Having Their Say. This group has been bringing Latino writers to the Houston area for more than twenty years, beginning with a monthly reading series in the late 1990s and organizing the Latino Book and Family Festival in the early 2000s to a literary radio program that’s been running for more than fifteen years called the Nuestra Palabra Radio Show.

The show goes on the air every Tuesday from 6:00 PM to 7:00 PM CST on Houston’s local Pacifica station KPFT 90.1FM and is livestreamed at KPFT.org. It is an hour-long show that focuses on literary works, as well as local community events and political happenings in the Houston area. Nuestra Palabra founder and director Tony Diaz interviews authors of all kinds—including poets, musicians, visual artists, historians, and chefs. The show is a brilliant opportunity to check out what is happening regionally, nationally, and internationally across the Latino landscape. You can listen to their archive of shows on the Nuestra Palabra website.

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