Category Archives: features

The Grinder Reading Series at Telegraph Cafe – Nov 8th

The Grinder Reading SeriesTelegraph Café Presents
A Monthly East Bay Reading Series & Open Mic
THE GRINDER ~ Thursday, Nov 8th, 2012 630-9 PM

Featuring –

Laura Jew is an Oakland native, a tough mudder, baking lover, and a student in her final year at Mills College. She is a proud fellow of Kundiman, a program for Asian American poets, and a recipient of CSU Chico’s annual creative writing award. Her poems have appeared in Watershed and, more frequently, on the desks of her professors.

Lauren Peck is a Southern transplant in pursuit of adventure and has one of those MFA degrees in Creative Writing. She’s primarily a poet, but is also currently writing a work of short stories about the misperceptions of monsters. She collects old love letters and lives in Oakland.

Born in Ecuador and raised in the Bronx, Oscar Bermeo is the author of four poetry chapbooks, most recently, To the Break of Dawn. He has taught creative writing workshops to inmates in Rikers Island Penitentiary, at-risk youth in the Bronx, foster teens in San Jose, bilingual elementary students in East Oakland, and to adults through the Oakland Public Library’s Oakland Word program. He is a Bronx Recognizes Its Own, CantoMundo, SF Intergenerational Writers Lab and VONA: Voices of Our Nations Arts Foundation poetry fellow.

Thurs, Nov 8th at 6:30pm
FREE Event
Telegraph Café
2318 Telegraph Ave
Oakland, CA 94612
Full Menu of delicious sausages, baked goods, and beverages. Plus $2 PBRs.

LitCrawl: CantoMundo, Acentos de la Bahia

What: Come listen to seven CantoMundo fellows share their palabra during Phase III (8:30-9:30) of SF’s world-famous LitCrawl!

Where: Inside the Mission Cultural Center (Mission street between 24th and 25th), a venue that is celebrating 35 historic years of commitment to the community.

When: During Phase III (8:30-9:30) of the world-famous literary event, San Francisco LitCrawl (October 13th, 2012). More info on the event can be found at: www.litcrawl.org/sf.

Why: Because it’s an opportunity to listen to seven CantoMundo fellows that are part of an organization whose vision is to develop, sustain, and support a diverse community of Latina/o poets from different backgrounds, ethnicities, and sexualities. And because nuestras voces son fuertes!

For more information on CantoMundo, click on the link: www.cantomundo.org.  Apply!

Who Will Be Reading and Representing CantoMundo:

Javier Zamora is the winner of the Organic Weapon Arts 2011 chapbook contest, Nueve Años Inmigrantes (2012). His poetry has appeared in NewBorder, Spillway, and Phat’titude.

Angel Garcia has lived in several cities throughout Southern California. He has worked in the field of education for several years as a tutor, residential advisor, instructor, and most recently as a coordinator for an educational non-profit in El Monte, CA. Angel is currently completing his first collection of poetry.

Writer and educator, Leticia Hernández-Linares, has performed her poemsongs throughout the country, and in El Salvador, for over a decade. Her writing has appeared in newspapers, literary journals and anthologies. Since 1995, she lives, works, and writes in the Mission District, San Francisco. See more about her adventures: www.ciguanabaink.com.

Ruben Quesada is the author of Next Extinct Mammal. His poetry has appeared in American Poetry Review, Third Coast, Rattle, and Southern California Review.

Oscar Bermeo was born in Ecuador, raised in the Bronx, and now makes his home in Oakland with his wife, poeta Barbara Jane Reyes, where they co-edit Doveglion Press. He is the author of Anywhere Avenue, Palimpsest, Heaven Below and To the Break of Dawn.

Manuel Paul López was born and raised in the U.S.-Mexican border region of El Centro, California. His work has been published in Bilingual Review/La Revista Bilingue, ZYZZYVA, Hanging Loose, and Rattle, among others. He is the author of Death of a Mexican and Other Poems and 1984.

Raina J. León has authored two collections of poetry, Canticle of Idols (2008) and Boogeyman Dawn (2013). She co-founded The Acentos Review.

Lauro Vazquez grew up Santa Rosa. He is a CantoMundo fellow and an M.F.A. candidate in poetry at the University of Notre Dame’s Creative Writing program.

Lyrics & Dirges April Poetry Reading

Lyrics & Dirges
Wednesday, April 20 · 7:30pm – 9:00pm
Pegasus Books, 2349 Shattuck Avenue, Downtown Berkeley

Pegasus Books Downtown is pleased to present Lyrics and Dirges, a reading series that happens on the Third Wednesday of every month. This series features a mix of prominent, emerging and beginning writers each month. Its aim is to highlight various forms of writing in an effort to spotlight the diverse literary community that lives in the Bay Area.

Join us for our fabulous April reading!

Barbara Jane Reyes was born in Manila, Philippines, raised in the San Francisco Bay Area. She is the author of the poetry collection, Diwata, a 2010 finalist for California Book Award and the Northern California Independent Booksellers Award. Her two previous collections of poetry are Gravities of Center and Poeta en San Francisco, which received the 2005 James Laughlin Award of the Academy of American Poets. She teaches at Mills College and University of San Francisco.

Indigo Moor is a poet, playwright and fiction writer. His first collection of poetry, Tap-Root, was published in 2006 as part of Main Street Rag’s Editor’s Select Poetry Series. His second poetry book, Through the Stonecutter’s Window, was a Northwestern University Press prize-winner. He work poems and prose appear in numerous journals and anthologies and he’s recently staged plays. He’s also currently working on an MFA in Stone Coast, Maine.

Oscar Bermeo was born in Ecuador and raised in the Bronx. He’s the author of the poetry chapbooks To the Break of Dawn, Anywhere Avenue, Palimpsest and Heaven Below. He lives and teaches in Oakland.

Rosa Lane is passions are two-fold: green architecture and writing. When she steals time away from her day job, she writes poetry on growing up in rural Maine and non-fiction on overall conceptual change in architecture and city planning. She’s the author of the chapbook Roots and Reckonings and her work has been published in Spectra Anthology, Passages North, Dark Horse, Shadowgraphs and Milvia Street.

Aisha Stone is an African-American writer, performance artist, and new mother. She has staged both short plays and solo performance pieces. Her current work focuses on developing material within the memoir and fantasy genres.

Refreshments and lots of cheer.

The Blood-Jet Writing Hour featuring Oscar Bermeo

The Blood-Jet Writing HourI’m honored to be featuring next Tuesday on the Blood-Jet Writing Hour with host, Rachelle Cruz. Rachelle has done an incredible job of curating and has highlighted some of my most favorite poets. Again, I return to feeling blessed and being so grateful for the chance to share my work with a broad audience. I’ve been in this game for almost ten years and I know for a fact that if I had told my 2001 self all this would happen, he’d laugh his ass off and shake his head in disbelief. Nuff talk, here are the details and I hope you can spread the word.

Episode #60: Oscar Bermeo on Tuesday, April 19th @ 11 am PST / 2 pm EST

Join Rachelle Cruz as she talks with Oscar Bermeo, author of To the Break of Dawn on Tuesday, April 19th at 11 am PST / 2 pm EST. Tune in through Blog Talk Radio.

Keep updated on The Blood-Jet Writing Hour through their blog and Facebook page.

Rhymes & Rhythms at the I-Hotel

RHYMES & RHYTHMS
Hosted by Nancy Hom and Avotcja
Saturday, April 2 · 5:00pm – 8:00pm

with
Pete Yamamoto
Edwin Lozada
Karen Llagas
Oscar Peñaranda
Jules Damji
Oscar Bermeo
Adrian Arias
Lourdes Figueroa
Naomi Quiñonez
plus Nancy and Avotcja and others

International Hotel Manilatown Center
868 Kearny Street, San Francisco CA

$5-$10 No one turned away

A benefit for the Manilatown Heritage Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to preserving & fostering the rich cultural and artistic traditions of San Francisco’s Filipino American community.