Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Palabra Pura: Wednesday, September 17 with Tomás Riley and Xenia Ruiz

This Wednesday we're back in the Guild Complex' Palabra Pura after taking August off. We have a local boricua, mi amiga Xenia Ruiz, and a great poet from California. Don't forget to bring your poems for the open mic.
Los espero este miércoles de vuelta en Palabra Pura. Como siempre, yo estaré allí de maestra de ceremonias para presentarles dos grandes poetas latinos. Recuerden traer sus poemas para el micrófono abierto.
Time: Doors open at 8:00 PM,
Reading begins at 8:30 PM
Cost: Free admission. 21 and over show.
Location: California Clipper, 1002 N. California, Chicago
Tomás Riley is the author of Mahcic: Selected Poems (Calaca Press, 2005) and Post-Chicano Stress Disorder forthcoming in 2009. A veteran of the influential spoken word collective The Taco Shop Poets he has appeared in the HBO documentary "Americanos: Latino Life in the United States", Gregory Nava's PBS dramatic series "American Family" (2002), and is profiled in Hector Galán's ITVS documentary series on Latina/o arts: "Visiones" (2004). His written work has been anthologized in Bum Rush the Page: A Def Poetry Jam, Chorizo Tonguefire: The Taco Shop Poets Anthology, Primera Palabra: Poetry from the Latino Heartland, Pacific Review and various journals and literary publications. Currently he lives, writes and works in the Mission District of San Francisco.

Born and raised in Chicago, Xenia Ruíz was educated in the public school system, attended Loop (now Harold Washington) and Wilbur Wright City Colleges, and graduated from Northwestern University with a bachelor’s in sociology and a minor in writing. Her first short story was published in Kaleidoscope: Women at Work in 1991. Also, in 1991, she started writing “her great American novel,” In the Picture I Have of You, the story of a woman coming to grips with her father’s abandonment and death after the suicide of her brother. Although she had an agent, the novel was rejected by four publishers; one major publisher offered to publish it—if she changed the format to their specifications. She refused and put it on hold. In 1997, her short story “Pops” won the First Prize Golden Pen Award in Northwestern University’s 59th Annual Iota Sigma Epsilon Fiction Contest.

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