Tale of Two Espinozas: Washington, D.C./Guadalajara

John Olivares Espinoza and Alex Espinoza were in the same undergraduate creative writing class at UC Riverside years ago and graduated in the same year.
Alex and John published in Gary Soto's Chicano Chapbook Series. Alex recently published his first novel, and John recently published his first book of poems.Today, Alex was a featured writer at the Guadalajara International Book Fair in Mexico. Today, John was a featured poet at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C...

I mentioned some of these parallels as I introduced John today, and I couldn't help but marvel and celebrate the trajectories of these two Espinozas as we inhabited that gallery space, surrounded by the images, tools, and voices of those who migrated north between 1942 and 1964. Espinozas whose verse and prose tell our stories.

                                                      

This Weekend in DC: The Poetics of Labor

JOHN OLIVARES ESPINOZA is the author of, The Date Fruit Elegies, the inaugural collection in Canto Cosas, a new poetry book series at Bilingual Press. In 2009, The Date Fruit Elegies was a finalist for the Northern California Book Award in poetry. Espinoza was born and raised in Indio, California to Mexican parents. He holds degrees in creative writing from the University of California, Riverside (B.A.) and Arizona State University (M.F.A.), where he spent time writing about his experience working as a gardener with his brother and father in nearby resorts. John and his wife live in San Jose, California, where he teaches at the National Hispanic University.

 

NAOMI AYALA’s book, Wild Animals on the Moon (Curbstone Press, 1997) was selected by the New York City Public Library as a Best Book for the Teen Age.  Her newest book of poems, This Side of Early, was released by Curbstone in March, 2009.  A Native of Puerto Rico, Ayala resides in Washington, DC, where she serves as the Executive Director of the Capitol Letters Writing Center.  Until recently, she was Senior Writer and Editor for a communications company that specializes in public health education.  Ayala also teaches at The Writer’s Center in Bethesda, MD and is the recipient of numerous awards for her work. Her third book of poems is slated for publication by Bilingual Press.

 

NAOMI AYALA & JOHN OLIVARES ESPINOZA

Letras Latinas interrupts its coverage of 

the 2009 Guadalajara International Book Fair

to bring you a special announcement.

Please forward this post to anyone 

in the Washington, D.C. area:

 

28th Annual Northern California Book Awards

And the finalists for
POETRY
are:

Lucky Break
Terry Ehret
Sixteen Rivers Press

Sleeping it Off in Rapid City, New and Selected
August Kleinzahler
Farrar, Straus & Giroux

the true keeps calm biding its story
Rusty Morrison
Ahsahta Press

and...

The Date Fruit Elegies
John Olivares Espinoza
Bilingual Press

To learn who are the finalists in other genres, click here.