What is memory? Is it made of smoke, water, fire, or flesh? Can it be broken or fractured like a bone?

In Allyson Jeffredo’s debut poetry chapbook, Songs After Memory Fractures, there is a father’s ghost that both lingers and fades. The realm is Loss. Longing. Love. The daughter/speaker in this collection grasps repeatedly at the elusive, at the No Longer Here, and there seems to be an urgency to weave.

One of my favorite names in the world is currently Yaccaira Salvatierra. It’s a name I imagine we could torture some white supremacists with. It’s fierce, poetic, and unapologetically muy Latino Américano.

I was stuck on a personal essay and looking for inspiration in my Must-Read-Memoir pile. I had gotten to a section in my own writing that made me feel frustrated, vulnerable. How long had I been writing the same story?

I’ve been carrying around a small zine in my bag for weeks, Zoraida & Marisol. What’s there not to love about small books? They’re light and portable. They’re easy to read or re-read in one sitting. If one wishes to share, they’re easy to pass on mano a mano. Carrying around books long after I’ve read them is a habit.

“Let me gather the river with my hands,” writes Rossy Evelin Lima in her latest poetry collection, Aguacamino/Waterpath. Published by Mouthfeel Press in 2015, Lima’s collection contains 20 bilingual poems that delve into womanhood, memory, migration, and roots. There is a lot of humo, the floating ghost of nostalgia, roaming through Lima’s pages.

If you haven’t yet read Benjamin Alire Sáenz’ YA novel, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe, I highly recommend it. It’s been one of my favorite reads of 2015.

Today we have la fabulosa Isabel Quintero in the house, chismeando conmigo about writing, publishing, and her YA novel, Gabi: A Girl in PIeces.

If you’re an Angelino with your eye on the literary scene, then most likely you’ve heard of Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo. She’s shared her award-winning poetry with audiences throughout LA and beyond. She is the creator and curated of the quarterly reading series HITCHED, formerly held at Beyond Baroque and now being hosted at Holy Grounds.

I can’t remember exactly where I first met Bao. It was about 13 years ago and we were both featured readers at a poetry event somewhere in Southern California. Although the specifics are a blur, I never forgot Bao or his reading that day. His words were fierce, poignant, original, full of fuego and flow.

In July, things collided and came apart. My brother-in-law tumbled off a roof and broke his leg. I rear-ended a Lexus. In July, we got “Super Historic” rainfall in L.A. I saw lightning strike the ocean. In July, the dead haunted my heart. The moon fell apart piece by piece and then put herself back together again—twice in one month, Blue Moon. And then there was the disarticulated poetry that inspired and surprised…

It’s not surprising the Suzanne Lummis’ newest collection of poetry, Open 24 Hours, was the winner of the 2013 Blue Lynx Prize. These are poems full of texture and poetic sass; they’re urban dwellers that live in gritty places, where “…The rubble of smashed / glass makes the sidewalk shine…” In these poems “tenants bitch” and poets get stopped on street corners and asked, “Are you saved?”

When I was in my 20’s I believed that passion (be it for a particular person, for poetry, for social justice or for lo que sea) was everything. Without passion, there was no poetry, no ganas, no nada. Being a person without passion was like being a deflated brown paper lunch bag.

I came to know the Los Angeles Chicano/a literary scene back in the 1990’s when it was bustling with some pretty incredible artists. I still have a clear image of seeing Luis Alfaro on stage for the first time. He was roller skating in a circle while reciting poems about his father and about growing up in Pico Union.

Iris De Anda’s recent book of poetry Codeswitch: Fires From Mi Corazón is an offering, a pumping heart, and in that heart are 4 chambers that burn. Rage. Love. Revolution. Evolution. The idea for creating 4 chapters or chambers in Codeswitch came to Iris late one night as she was drifting off to sleep.

Since she was a chiquilla, Sonia had a knack for weaving words and stories. A lizard who grew back a severed tail could, in Sonia’s eyes, easily be compared to a resurrected Jesus. When asked one evening by her sister if she could rap, Sonia seized the challenge and busted out a bold impromptu sing-song-palabra-something.

In October of 2013, Arktoi Books (an Imprint of Red Hen Press) published Verónica Reyes’ first collection of poetry, Chopper! Chopper! Poetry from Bordered Lives. Entre las páginas de este libro helicopters roam, tortillas torcidas fly, violins soothe a man’s heart, diablos ask for comida and compassion, Xicanas theorize over jotería and sopa.

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.