Category Archives: Huizache News

The Biggest Little Secret in Texas

An appreciation of HUIZACHE by Daniel Peña at Ploughshares:

As far as literary journal subscriptions go, I only maintain three. I’m one of those writers, and for my sins I mostly miss the great early pieces of writers I come to love years later. This is especially true of new Latina/o writers, who I think most people miss for various reasons, not least of which is the serious lack of hard-hitting journals that focus on new Latina/o work.

Huizache Issue #3That’s not to say there are none though.Huizache, which is probably one of my favorite journals right now, has quietly carved out a space for Latina/o letters both old and new.

Maceo Montoya’s New Book

We’re excited to share news of Maceo Montoya’s latest publication, Letters to the Poet from His Brother. Montoya will be published in HUIZACHE’s fourth issue, coming this fall.

Here’s what he has to say about his book: “I’m writing now to announce the release of Letters to the Poet from His Brother, published by Copilot Press. A combination of both my written and visual work, the book is described as ‘hybrid memoir woven between essay, painting, drawing, and poem.’ Letters to the Poet from His Brother is a deeply personal book, delving into my relationship with my late brother, poet Andrés Montoya, as well as with my artist father Malaquias and the cultural legacy of the Chicano Art Movement. It’s an important moment for me to share these thoughts with family, friends, fellow writers and artists, and the greater community.

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“Perhaps most importantly, I also see it as a way of sharing Andrés, my memories of him, and his impact on me. For that reason I wanted to find a way of connecting Andrés more directly to the project. So in his honor, proceeds from the first 300 copies sold will be donated to the Andrés Montoya Poetry Prize Initiative–a project of Letras Latinas, the literary initiative at the Institute for Latino Studies at the University of Notre Dame. This will eventually help to fund a symposium focused on Andrés’s life and work.”

David Campos Wins Andrés Montoya Poetry Prize

David Campos, whose poetry appeared in HUIZACHE’s third issue, has been named winner of the 2014 Andrés Montoya Poetry Prize.

Rhina P. Espaillat, who judged this year’s contest, writes of Campos’ collection:  “But the prize goes to the remarkable Pica, a work whose five parts trace a son’s effort—only partially successful—to fulfill his father’s expectations and—perhaps even more difficult—understand those expectations enough to forgive them.”

You can read one of Campos’ poems, Dusk, right here on our website. And you can follow him on Twitter at @camposwriter.

Congratulations!

 

Interview with Diana Lopez, Managing Editor of HUIZACHE

A fresh interview with Diana Lopez:

It’s a short tree with thorns, and it’s considered a nuisance by farmers. Most people think it’s ugly, so you don’t really see huizaches in the nurseries, which only further proves how undesirable it is—so undesirable, in fact, that it gets pulled out like a weed. No matter. It’s a stubborn tree. It comes back, and it blooms gold.

Read more here.

Laurie Ann Guerrero Named San Antonio’s New Poet Laureate

Congratulations to Laurie Ann Guerrero, who has just been appointed San Antonio’s new Poet Laureate by Mayor Julian Castro. Guerrero, whose collection A Tongue in the Mouth of the Dying won the 2012 Andrés Montoya Poetry Prize, was a featured reader at HUIZACHE’s recent reading in Seattle.

Of her collection, Francisco X. Alarcón writes, “This is the poetry of both saints and sinners (and even murderers). The poet conjures up Pablo Neruda, Gloria Anzaldúa, Sylvia Plath, and is rooted in the best Latin American, Chicano/a, and contemporary American poetics, able to render an effective poetic version of Nepantla, the land where different traditions meet, according to Anzaldúa. These poems make the reader laugh, cry, cringe, lose one’s breath, and almost one’s mind, at times. These poems restore my faith in the power of poetry.”

And congratulations, too, to Carmen Tafolla, who has just completed her busy two-year term as the city’s first Poet Laureate, during which she conducted over one hundred events, ranging from school visits to public performances. Tafolla is the recipient of numerous honors, including two Tomás Rivera Book Awards, two ALA Notable Books, and the the prestigious Américas Book Award. She has been recognized by the National Association of Chicana and Chicano Studies for work which “gives voice to the peoples and cultures of this land.”

We’re honored to have published them both in HUIZACHE.

For more on San Antonio’s new Poet Laureate, visit:

Rolando Hinojosa Wins 2013 Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award

Dagoberto Gilb, writer and HUIZACHE’s founding editor, was recently in New York to present the 2013 Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award to the legendary Rolando Hinojosa. The award, given by the National Book Critics Circle, is named for the first president of the NBCC and is given annually “to a person or institution—a writer, publisher, critic, or editor, among others—who has, over time, made significant contributions to book culture.”  Previous winners include Joyce Carol Oates, Studs Terkel, Leslie Fiedler, Pauline Kael, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, PEN American Center, and the Library of America.

“[Hinojosa] tells the common stories of us, not the predictable cliches and stereotypes,” Gilb said. “He does it in a language that is ours. He tells stories not just about where we once came from, but where we have been and still are.”

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From the NBCC award announcement: “The recipient of the Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award is Rolando Hinojosa-Smith. At 84, Hinojosa-Smith is the dean of Chicano authors, best known for his ambitious Klail City Death Trip cycle of novels. He is also an accomplished translator and essayist, as well as a mentor and inspiration to several generations of writers. A recipient of the 1976 Premio Casa de las Americas, Hinojosa-Smith is professor of literature at the University of Texas, Austin, where he has taught for nearly three decades.”

See more reactions to Rolando Hinojosa’s award from the Texas Book Festival and the University of Texas at Austin.

 

The Boy Kings of Texas: Coming Soon to a TV Near You

HBO has optioned h3 contributor Domingo Martinez’s The Boy Kings of Texas (Lyons Press 2012). The coming-of-age memoir about growing up in Brownsville, Texas, in the 1980s was a finalist for the National Book Award in 2012; a Gold Medal Winner of the Independent Publishers Book Awards; and a Non-Fiction Finalist for The Washington State Book Awards.

From the press release:

“It’s beyond my comprehension that this book has drawn this level of attention and success, but I’m doing my best to absorb it and adjust,” said Martinez, who is currently working on his next book, My Heart is a Drunken Compass, which will be published by Lyons Press in November 2014. “I have to credit my agent, Alice Martell, and my editor, Lara Asher, for seeing the potential in the book in the first place, and all the support I’ve had at Lyons Press. It was my first book, and with nothing in the way of a publishing background, I was certainly a gamble. But to their credit, they saw what the book could be and what it’s done, and so here it is, making the leap from the literary to the cinematic—and on HBO, no less.”

Martinez will write the script; Salma Hayek and Jerry Weintraub are the executive producers on the project.

And to read Martinez’s Changes in Altitudes, check out our third issue.

Congratulations!

Huizache Reading and Reception in Seattle

Please join us February 28, 2014 from 4:30 to 6:30 PM at Mexico Cantina y Cocina in Seattle to celebrate the release of the third issue of HUIZACHE, the magazine of Latino literature, with a reading and reception featuring contributors Domingo Martinez, Tim Seibles, and Laurie Ann Guerrero. The event, held in conjunction with this year’s AWP convention, is free and open to the public.

HuizSeattle2aAbout our readers:

DOMINGO MARTINEZ’s work has appeared in Epiphany, The New Republic, This American Life, Huizache, All Things Considered, and Saveur Magazine. He is a regular contributor to NPR’s This American Life and has appeared on NPR’s All Things Considered and The Diane Rehm Show. Martinez was the recipient of the Bernard De Voto Fellowship for Non-Fiction at Bread Loaf Writer’s Colony in 2013, and is a fundraiser and spokesperson for 826 Seattle, the literacy project founded by Dave Eggers. His memoir, The Boy Kings of Texas, was a finalist for the 2012 National Book Award, a 2013 Pushcart Prize nominee, a Gold Medal Winner for the Independent Publisher Book Awards, and a New York Times bestseller; it will soon be an HBO series, with Salma Hayek and Jerry Weintraub as executive producers. He lives in Seattle and is currently working on his next book, My Heart is a Drunken Compass (forthcoming from Lyons Press in November 2014).

TIM SEIBLES is the author of numerous collections of poetry, including Body Moves (1988), Hurdy-Gurdy (1992), Hammerlock (1999), Buffalo Head Solos (2004), and Fast Animal (2012), which was a 2012 National Book Award finalist. His work has also been featured in the anthologies In Search of Color Everywhere: A Collection of African American Poetry (1994, edited by E. Ethelbert Miller and Terrance Cummings), Black Nature: Four Centuries of African American Nature Poetry (2009, edited by Camille Dungy), and Best American Poetry (2010, edited by Amy Gerstler). Seibles’ honors include fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center, as well as an Open Voice Award from the National Writers Voice Project. Born in Philadelphia in 1955, he now lives in Norfolk, Virginia, where is a member of the English Department and MFA in Writing faculty of Old Dominion University, as well as a teaching board member of the Muse Writers Workshop. He teaches part time for the University of Southern Maine’s Stonecoast MFA in Writing Program, and is a teacher at Cave Canem.

LAURIE ANN GUERRERO’s first full-length collection, A Tongue in the Mouth of the Dying (University of Notre Dame Press 2013), was the winner of the 2012 Andrés Montoya Poetry Prize. Her poetry and critical work have appeared in Huizache, Texas Monthly, Bellevue Review, Women’s Studies Quarterly, Global City Review, Texas Observer, Chicana/Latina Studies, Feminist Studies and others. A CantoMundo fellow and member of the Macondo Writers’ Workshop, she was named one of ten top emerging poets in 2013 by Poets & Writers Magazine. She has served on the faculty at Palo Alto College, University of the Incarnate Word, University of Texas-El Paso, and Gemini Ink, a community-centered literary arts organization in San Antonio. She holds a B.A. in English Language and Literature from Smith College, where she received the Academy of American Poets Prize, and an MFA in poetry from Drew University. Born and raised in the Southside of San Antonio, she is a visiting writer at San Antonio’s Our Lady of the Lake University.

Copies of all three issues of HUIZACHE will be available at the event, along with $2 tacos and $3 draft beer (courtesy of Mexico Cantina y Cocina).

Mexico Cantina y Cocina is locatred at 600 Pine St. #402 Seattle, WA 98101