Ello Novel Launched by Writer of First Twitter Novel In April of 2008, I began an experiment to write the first Twitter novel, “Small Places.” Now I’m fusing technology and literature in the first Ello novel, “So Long,” illustrated by New York artist Siyi Chen. I’m actually now in PHASE […]
Pakatelas Episode 1: Steve Pacheco
Steve Pacheco is the guest with Pakatelas host Michael Medrano. Pacheco is from the Lower Sioux Indian Community, a small reservation in southwestern Minnesota, where he currently resides. He is the co-author of Shedding Skins: Four Sioux Poets (Michigan State University Press, 2008), and has recently been a guest editor for the literary journal Yellow Medicine […]
Conversation With An Immigration Reform Protestor
GONZALO SANTOS WAS TIRED, EXCITED, passionate when he called me about the Wednesday’s immigration reform protests in Bakersfield, Calif. He and other demonstrators followed several U.S. Congressmen to a country club, and then to a farmer’s dirt field, as continued pressure on lawmakers to re-write a system of immigration laws, Santos says are “woefully outdated.” […]
The Art Of Resemblance In Nonfiction
When I walked into the apartment of memoirist Alan Kaufman in Lower Nob Hill around 2011, I noticed paintings covering his walls. I’d already read his nearly 500-page memoir, Drunken Angel. The book chronicles how he became a writer and drunk (and how he recovered from alcoholism). There was nothing about him being a painter. How could he […]
Writer Turf Wars
I RECEIVED AN EMAIL today from writer Nancy Edwards talking about me getting mentioned in a newspaper article. She’s a student at my Random Writers Workshop. The irony is she was my college English professor in the early 1990s. I always point this out. At a recent memoir event I blamed my last twenty years of […]
Latino In America, Part One: Immigration Reform
LAST YEAR MARKED a turning point for me as a Latino poet supporting comprehensive immigration reform. My increase in social activism was related to the increased need for solutions to America’s problem of over-deportation and significant roadblocks in paths to citizenship. I can’t blame any immigrant for seeking a better, honest life in America. I […]
Reading Aloud For Meaning
READING ALOUD HELPS catch those pesky typos and shifts in verb tense. That’s obvious. What if there’s a deeper meaning to crooning your fiction across the dining room table? I thought I would dig a little deeper and explain why I like to read my drafts aloud. The word “writing” for me regarding fiction often […]
Why Comedy Tweets Are Good For Writers
HADN’T REALIZED I’D TWEETED forty or so times about talking to my novel. Sure it’s a far cry from the 935 tweets that make up Small Places (Twitter novel I tweeted between 2008-2010. Read some on The Nervous Breakdown). Me: You like being a second draft? Novel: I don’t feel as crazy-eyed. Now what? Me: […]
What Does It Mean To Writers When An Indie Bookstore Closes?
RUSSO’S BOOKS, perhaps the only independent bookstore left in California’s Central Valley, is closing in a little more than a week. Some people say it sucks. Others have an “oh well” attitude. But what does the indie bookstore’s impending doom mean to writers? It’s a little premature to say the Bakersfield bookstore is going away. […]
Storytellers To Recount Experiences At Memoir Event
FOR THE SECOND TIME, Invisible Memoirs has selected a Bakersfield author’s story as its centerpiece, even naming the California-wide anthology after a local memoir. Why I am I excited about this? As the workshop instructor and initial editor of everyone’s submissions, I’m just so happy all of my students’ hard work paid off. Twelve local […]