A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about attending the 2013 AROHO Writing Retreat in Ghost Ranch, New Mexico, where I met many amazing women writers and artists from around the country. One of those women is pintora-extraordinaire Karina Puente, who grew up in Santa Ynez Valley, California and graduated from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and Tufts University.

The day Sueño arrives in the mail I am rushing to the ER to visit my father. For the past four months, his 86-year-old body has been on a downward spiral due to advanced Parkinson’s and a tenacious pneumonia he cannot shake. Is there anyone who does not loath an emergency room, those cold places teeming with the injured, the ill, the high, the highly distressed, and the high-strung staff?

I'm not really sure if real women have to have curves (I know some flacas who are pretty chingonas), but in my opinion female filmmakers, especially indigenous female filmmakers like Yolanda Cruz, have to have a lot of nerve.

We're at Liliana's tamales in East Los Angeles, grubbing on cocido and gorditas de nopal. Snoop Dogg is rapping on two large LCD screens that hang at opposite ends of the restaurant, but no one seems to be watching the almost muted TVs.

Remember when being an hocicona (a shameless, big-mouthed backtalker) was deemed culturally improper and punishable by Draconian barrio castigos, such as public regañadas, cachetadas, or chanclazos?

A couple of months ago ire’ne’s manuscript came my way. It fell into my hands unexpectedly, passed on from a friend. furia. The title intrigued me. I carried the manuscript around in my book bag for a while, hoping to find the right time to sit down with it.

CPAL (AKA Covid-19 Temporary Paid Administrative Leave) lived a very brief tumultuous life in the California State University system. Full of promise and unfulfilled potential, CPAL came into existence as an emergency relief program in the spring of 2020.

Fellow Americans, in light of the deadly virus that is currently plaguing the world and so viciously attacking our beloved American economy, I offer this simple and Swift* modest proposal: Human Sacrifice.

There are no children’s books in your house growing up. No dictionaries. No encyclopedias. Not even a Bible to skim through. Your main reading material consists of Catholic leaflets given out at Sunday Mass. You fight your siblings for Frosted Flakes, Lucky Charms, and Cocoa Puffs; it’s not the sugary cereals you want but the writing on the back of the colorful boxes. Words are scarce, and you’re starving.

The following is a Communal Interview organized by Olga García: Questions from different folks for our Estimado Poet Laureate Juan Felipe Herrera.