Rio Hondo College
Division of Communications and
Languages
Writes of
Spring Festival
Wednesday, April
18, 2007
all events are FREE and open to the public
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Other
Outstanding Writers
Park in Student Lot C
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Mariano Zaro
8:05 a.m. Wray Theater
Mariano Zaro was born in Borja (Spain) in 1963 and since 1994
he has lived in Santa Monica. He attended the University at Zaragoza and
earned his master´s degree in Spanish Literature in 1986. His work has
been published in Spain’s literary magazines El signo del gorrión
and Luces y sombras. His poetry has been included in the
anthologies Al aire nuevo (San Luis Potosí, Mexico), and New
Baroque (Los Angeles). His short fiction has appeared in The Louisville
Review and The Baltimore Review. His first poetry book Where
From/Desde Donde, was published by Bay Books (Santa Monica) in
1996. In September 2003, Carayan Press (San Francisco) published his
Poems
of erosion/Poemas de la erosión. Mariano is currently working on a
collection of portraits (short stories) entitled Imago
Animi.
"The poems of Mariano Zaro leave me with a delicious longing. It is as if I am wrapped in the silk of his words, where a wisp of color or a smell suddenly floats. Maybe it is olive, lavender or smoke, maybe it is a faint scent of a lover’s sweat. These surprising poems coax softly, and when least expected, break your heart. Take care while reading this book. Take your time, read slowly, savor. Let your tongue beat out the rhythms in Spanish and English. Open up to these beautiful poems, reader, they are rare." -- Alicia Vogl Sáenz
Los poemas de Mariano Zaro me dejan un delicioso
anhelo. Siento que me arropan con la seda de sus palabras mientras flota
inesperado el atisbo de un color o un perfume. Quizá sea la aceituna, el
espliego o el humo; quizá el aroma desvanecido del sudor de un amante. De
este modo, dulce-mente, Zaro lleva al lector por el territorio del deseo.
Dice así: "No puedo predecir mi deseo/ni siquiera es mío". Y el lector no
puede predecir la sorpresa de estos poemas que seducen y, cuando menos lo
esperas, te parten el corazón. Ten cuidado cuando leas este libro. Tómate tu
tiempo, lee despacio, saborea. Deja que tu lengua marque los ritmos en
español y en inglés. "Se abrieron simultáneos/mi cuerpo y tu palabra./ No
pude distinguirlos". Ábrete a estos bellos poemas, lector, son únicos.
-- Alicia Vogl Sáenz
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Gustavo Arellano
9:40 a.m. Wray
Theater
Gustavo Arellano is a
staff writer with OC Weekly. He is a familiar presence in Southern
California radio as a frequent guest on liberal and conservative talk shows,
where he discusses local and national issues. Gustavo also writes “Ask a
Mexican!,” a nationally syndicated column and
winner of the 2006 Association
of Alternative Weeklies award for Best Column
in which he answers any and all questions about America’s spiciest and
largest minority.
Ask a Mexican! will be published in book form on Cinco de
Mayo 2007. Gustavo has been the subject of press coverage in the Los Angeles
Times, Detroit Free Press, San Antonio Express-News, Mexico City’s
El Universal newspaper, The Today Show, The Situation with Tucker Carlson,
Nightline, The Tom Leykis Show and
The Colbert Report.
Gustavo’s commentaries on Latino culture appear regularly on NPR’s Day to
Day and Latino USA program, the Los Angeles Times, San Francisco
Chronicle, and The Glenn Beck Show. Gustavo was a finalist for the
2005
Maggie Award’s Best Public Service Series or Article category for his work
on the Catholic Diocese of Orange sex-abuse scandal, a topic for which he
was the recipient of the Lilly Scholarship in Religion from the Religion Newswriters
Association. Gustavo was also a finalist for the
2005 PEN USA Literary Awards for
Journalism for his profile
on a disabled Latino veteran of the Iraq War.
Susana Chávez-Silverman
11:15
a.m. Wray Theater
Susana
Chávez-Silverman grew up (at least) bilingually and biculturally between
Los Angeles, Madrid and Guadalajara, México, the daughter of a Jewish
Hispanist and a Chicana teacher. She has spent years living in Boston,
Berkeley, Santa Cruz, Los Angeles, Spain, South Africa, and Argentina, and is currently professor
of Spanish, Latino/a and Latin American Studies and Chair of the Department of
Romance Languages and Literature at Pomona College in Claremont,
California. Her new book
Killer Crónicas is an inventive, powerful,
and funny memoir written in Spanglish. Susana Chávez-Silverman conveys her
cultural and linguistic displacement in a humorous, bittersweet, and even
tangible way in this truly bilingual literary work. These meditative and
lyrical pieces combine poignant personal confession, detailed daily
observation, and a memorializing drive that shifts across time and among
geocultural spaces. Killer Crónicas confirms that there is no
Latina voice quite like that of Susana
Chávez-Silverman.
Killer Crónicas:
Quick, charming and utterly confusing to those who don’t speak some Spanish.
But the author aims to wake readers up, make them think. Chávez-Silverman
tells readers, "Para explicar estos mis flights (of fancy), tendría que
empezar por decir que soy, it is—my language—cual homing pigeon on acid."
Chávez-Silverman takes readers across borders and through time to represent
her vast variety of life experiences, from facing the challenges of being a
Latina woman to dealing with loneliness, to going out dancing and exploring
new cultures.
Oscar Torres
Mr. Torres has been delayed in Mexico, where he is editing his next film.
Oscar Torres is the writer/co-producer of Innocent Voices (Voces Inocentes). Born in the village of Cuscatancingo, El Salvador in 1971, Mr. Torres was caught in the crossfire of the country’s 12 year civil war. Almost as dramatic as the story of his survival during the conflict, which is depicted in Innocent Voices, are the events of his escape, alone, to the United States in 1985, at age thirteen. Against all odds he was eventually re-united here with his mother and three siblings. Torres eventually entered the Latin American Studies program at the UC--Berkeley, before dropping out and moving back to Los Angeles to pursue an acting career. As an aspiring actor Torres made ends meet with those commercials until he began to get work in theater and on television series such as ER, First Monday, Any Day Now, CSI:Miami, among others, and in independent films such as El Matadero, The Opposite of Sex, Hired Help, Hurlyburly, The Silent Cross. Through it all, Torres worked on the screenplay for Innocent Voices, which was initially intended as an act of personal exorsism. "At that point," he says, "I still saw myself primarily as an actor. I was at the Beverly Hills Playhouse taking acting classes and working it day in and day out." Mr. Torres is currently writing and producing several projects including a romance drama about the destruction of the rain forests in Madre de Dios, Peru- and the life story of beloved Mexican icon Cantinflas.