AWP 2019– Portland

Join Vickie for a book signing and cumbia dance party pop-up with poet Heidi Restrepo Rhodes, author of The Inheritance of Haunting at AWP.

Date and time: Friday, March 29, 2019, 3-4pm

Location: AWP book fair booth 6042: The University of Arizona Press/Latinx Caucus 

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Come through for a second event! The reading is called “The Literary Citizen: SW X NW” with fabulous writers like TC Tolbert, Elizabeth Alvarado, and more to be announced.

Date and time: Saturday, March 30, 2019, 3-5pm, FREE

Location: Rev. Nat’s Hard Cidery and Taproom, Portland, just across the river from the Convention Center.  Rev. Nat’s is brewing a Literary Citizen Cider in honor of the event.

South East Los Angeles River Arts Festival, July 21, 2018

 

 

 

 

 

Photo: Kency Cornejo

After dozens of amazing artists had performed, and following LA bands Quetzal and La Victoria, I got to share two poems and an excerpt from “Vete a la Chingada Party” at the first-ever South East Los Angeles River Arts Festival in South Gate, CA.

Over 2,000 people attended: babies, bike riders, punk bands, a tortoise, grandmas, my younger brother, and so many more beautiful beings.

To support the people making this work happen, visit them at @proyectovecindad on IG or at https://www.facebook.com/ProyectoVecindad/

Gracias Xitlalic Guijosa and Eric Contreras and all the SELA gang for your amazing work!!!

Photo: Oscar Magana

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hybrid reading/lecture at RaceCraft: A Symposium, Thursday, October 20

RaceCraft: A Symposium: A[…]* genealogy to the contemporary craft movement

Barbara And Art Culver Center Of Arts, 3834 Main St., Riverside, California 92501

Free and open to the public. Limited seating. To reserve a seat, navigate to: <https://artsblock.ucr.edu/Performance/RaceCraft-symposium

Slow. Sustainable. DIY. Green. Local. Anti-mainstream. These are some of the keywords associated with the contemporary craft movement. Enabled by technology and new media, craft culture has been described as a combination of traditional artisanal craftsmanship, punk culture, and a DIY sensibility. It often positions itself as a response to the problems of globalization, hyper-consumerism and environmental degradation. Crafting is now, in the words of the maker-activist Betsy Greer, “craftivism,” a politically active site of social change.

12 – 12:10 Welcome by Sarita See
12:15 – 1 Presentation by Aram Han Sifuentes
1:15 – 2 Presentation by Marie Lo
2 – 2:30 Coffee Break
2:30 – 3:15 Hybrid reading/lecture/presentation by Vickie Vertiz
3:30 – 4:15 Presentation by Bovey Lee
4:30 – 5:30 Roundtable with all speakers and
Clare Counihan and Jan Christian Bernabe

But has “green” become the new white?

Despite its activist and inclusive ethos, the contemporary craft movement has been dominated by a neoliberal model of middle-class whiteness. Localism and lifestyle choices have become valorized as the primary modes of social change. People of color are often invisible in the craft movement, except as victims of globalization and exploitative labor practices who need to be saved by first world crafters.

RaceCraft explores crafting not as a lifestyle choice but as an effect and response to systemic forms of discrimination. In this context, being “crafty” is not just a DIY attitude and aptitude; it is an enabling subterfuge that doubles as critique, in which the constraints of production are not just aesthetic but also racial. RaceCraft seeks to situate craft within global and local histories of exclusion, colonialism, dispossession and subjugation. We have invited speakers who explore the tensions and fissures of “craft” discourse and that expose its neoliberal underpinnings. Finally, RaceCraft seeks to deepen our current conversations about craft so as to generate new frameworks for thinking about the transformative possibilities of craft, one that takes into consideration, racial justice in relation to “green” modes of sustainability, political activism and community building.

The work of the symposium speakers is featured in the affiliated online exhibition hosted by the Center for Art and Thought, co-curated by Marie Lo and Sarita See and assisted by intern Martina Dorff. To explore the exhibition, navigate to: <http://centerforartandthought.org/work/project/racecraft

Sponsored by: UCR Department of Media and Cultural Studies, Center for Art and Thought, UCR College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences (CHASS), the City of Riverside, & UCR Department of Ethnic Studies. Special thanks to the The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts and the California Institute of Contemporary Arts ; and Martina Dorff.

*Deletion is the author’s. To fully claim this knowledge around resourcefulness, I insist we affirm these ways of knowing as “geneology” and not “alternative.”

From the Stacks at the Poetry Center

 

 

Vickie-Vértiz_08-10-2016_10-small
Getting ready for the final reading at the Poetry Center. Photo: Hannah Ensor

 

Everyone should visit the generous, lovely staff at the University of Arizona, Tucson’s Poetry Center. A tremendous thank you to: Tyler, Wendy, Laura, Julie, Renee, the two Sarahs, Aisha, generous docents Marc and Tony, and of course, the inimitable, Hannah Ensor.

Here are my selections from the stacks at the Poetry Center during my recent residency!

The Wind Shifts: New Latino Poetry edited by Francisco Aragón

A Beautiful Marsupial Afternoon by CAConrad

Troubling the Line: Trans & Genderqueer Poetry & Poetics edited by TCTolbert and Tim Trace Peterson

What I Say: Innovative Poetry by Black Writers in America edited by Aldon Lynn Nielsen and Lauri Ramey

The Poetry of Arab Women: A Contemporary Anthology edited by Nathalie Handal

The Poetics of Space  by Gaston Bachelard

The Complete Poems of Jean Genet by ManRoot Magazine

Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude by Ross Gay

Night Sky With Exit Wounds  by Ocean Vuong

The Service Porch by Fred Moten

The Taxidermist’s Cut by Rajiv Mohabir

Off-Season City Pipe by Hedge Coke

How the End Begins by Cynthia Cruz

Other People’s Comfort Keeps Me Up At Night by Morgan Parker

A Third Instance by Rosa Alcalá, Graig Watson, and Elizabeth Whitehead

The Lust of Unsentimental Waters by Rosa Alcalá

Undocumentaries by Rosa Alcalá

187 Reasons Mexicanos Can’t Cross the Border by Juan Felipe Herrera

Sing by Hedge Coke

 

Macondo Writers’ Workshop 2016– open mic recordings

Thanks to Joseph Rios, here is a sample of the open mic at Macondo Writers’ Workshop 2016 in San Antonio. It starts with Carribean Fragoza and ends with yours truly reading the MOZ fans tribute poem, “Lover’s Letter.” Much love to Laurie Ann Guerrero for all her hard work, and to Alex Espinoza and Tim Z. Hernandez for their teachings.

And of course, the beautiful Joe Jimenez writes about teaching the young writers at this link.

“I’d be lying if I said I never am starstruck, which is a wonderful idea in and of itself, that a star might strike our bodies, touch our muscles and bones, an impact on the red flesh of heart, skin and eyes that look upon the world. Scientifically, being struck by a star isn’t such a beautiful event or perhaps it is. Incineration. Going back into the nobility of the universe, its gases, its dark mass, its heat, each a possibility of scientific beauty and God. And that’s some of the wonder of Macondo – possibility. Both can exist, more. All at once.”

Photo by Macondista Xochitl Julissa Bermejo: clockwise: liz gonzalez, Tischa Reichle, Carribean Fragoza.

SGV LA Macondo writers_credit Xohitl J Bermejo

Southeast Los Angeles writing featured at AWP 2016

 

710 inauguration.jpg
The 710, Long Beach Freeway runs through Bell Gardens and dozens of southeast cities in LA county. (Photo: Hal Link, 1970, City of Bell Gardens Archive)

Join me as I moderate two panels at the #AWP16 writers’ conference happening in LA this year! Latinx writers from all over the southland will share our prose and poetry on the following panels, THURSDAY, March 31, 2016:

Panel R225. From New Wave and Punk: Musical influences on Latino Literary Aesthetics.  

1:30 pm to 2:45 pm, Room 505, LA Convention Center, Meeting Room Level

 With special guest Michelle Gonzales from SpitBoy, Daniel Chacon, Carribean Fragoza, musicologist Marlen Rios, and Vickie Vertiz.

From all corners of Los Angeles and across this country, punk and New Wave music have influenced Latino writers for decades. This multigenre panel is equal parts reading, discussion, and listening party. Through poems, essays, and stories, the panelists highlight how, as listeners, they blend literary aesthetics with New Wave and punk sounds to tell new stories.

3:00 pm to 4:15 pm

Room 410, LA Convention Center, Meeting Room Level

Panel R252. Mistaking Planes for Stars: Los Angeles Writing from Freeways to Flight Paths.  

 With Vickie Vertiz,  Aida Salazar ,  Steve Gutierrez,  and Melinda Palacio.

From Bukowski to Viramontes, working-class writing in Los Angeles is a longstanding tradition. Latinos are the largest ethnic group in the county, bringing avant-garde aesthetics to literature. However, many of our stories have yet to be told. This reading highlights cutting edge poetry, story, and performance by working-class and queer Latinos from a little-known part of Los Angeles: the southeast. From railroad yards to factory floors, writers share their work of grit and heart.

See you there!

Vertiz Hosts UC Riverside MFA Reading Series

Join Vickie Vertiz this school year as she hosts UC Riverside’s graduate student reading series. Come hear crisp stories, dangerous poems, and legends about sorrow, robots, and much more.

Featured readers from UCR:
Aleksandr Peterson, Derrick Ortega, Amanda Ruud,  and more.

Special guests: Chad Sweeney, and Cal State San Bernardino MFA students: Tristan Acker, K.L. Straight., Elisha Holt, Isaac Escalera, Heather Reyes, Andrea Fingerson and Ryan Garcia.
+ open mic

Where:

Cellar Door Books 225 Canyon Crest Dr. Suite 30A/B, across from Jammin’ Bread, Riverside, Ca 951-787-7807

When:

Friday, Nov. 15, 2013, 7:30-9pm, Free event

Facebook page:

https://www.facebook.com/events/666003433421735/?ref_dashboard_filter=calendar

Mark your calendars for future reading dates:

January 16, 2014
Cal State University San Bernardino

March 7, 2014
Skylight Books

May 15, 2014- Second Year Student Final Reading
Culver Art Center

ROAR SHACK- It Takes a Year

Vickie will join the Roar Shack Reading Series in July for their Live Write!

Live Writing is a thrilling feat of writerly improvisation. As you arrive, you get to vote on a prompt. The winning prompt will be revealed to four intrepid authors – two of us and two of you audience types, onstage for all to see! Then the Live Writers will each read their just-written words, and the audience gets to vote! The winner will develop the work into a finished piece to be read at the next show.

ROAR SHACK
A Partnership with
Portuguese Artists Colony
Presents: It Takes a Year

Sunday, July 14, 2013 at 826LA
4 – 5:30 p.m.

Roar Shack is a collective of writers and artists, and over the coming months we’re going to bring you voices. Some of us come from fiction, some from memoir, some from poetry, and from music and performance and just about anything that leaves its own blood on the page. We want to bring you what you may not be getting much of. Won’t you join us?

The next show is July 14, 2013 at 826 LA in Echo Park (http://826la.org/) from 4-5:30 pm.

We dare you to miss this lineup:

Amy Boutell: Amy Boutell’s short stories have appeared in Post Road, New Letters, Nimrod, and Other Voices, and her first novel, The Invention of Violet, was a finalist for the 2012 Pirate’s Alley/Faulkner Society Novel-in-Progress competition. She holds an MFA from the Michener Center for Writers and has received support from the Norman Mailer Writers Colony, the Ragdale Foundation, and Summer Literary Seminars. She lives in Santa Barbara and works as an instructor at UCSB’s Writing Lab.

Brittany Michelson: Brittany Michelson’s short fiction and CNF is published in The Whistling Fire, Bartleby Snopes, Flashquake, Effluvia, Sleet Magazine, Speech Bubble Magazine, Backhand Stories, Bat Terrier, Glossolalia Fiction, Every Day Fiction, Toasted Cheese Literary Journal, and other online journals. Her short story “The Experiment” was included in Speech Bubble Magazine’s “Best Of” anthology, and her short story “Postpartum” was a Story Of the Month winner in Bartleby Snopes. Print work is published in PoemMemoirStory Magazine, If & When Literary Journal, an anthology by Bona Fide Books, and The Poetry Of Yoga Vol. 2. She is a private homeschool teacher and teaches one college composition class.

Zoe Ruiz interviews our musica guest, Alex Maslansky: Zoë Ruiz is the Saturday Editor for The Rumpus and staff member of FOUND. Her work has appeared in The Rumpus, Two Serious Ladies, and Trop. Currently she’s working on her interview project “Learn People Better” and curates READINGS, a Los Angeles based reading series. She lives in Los Angeles and when she is not writing, she teaches yoga.

Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo: Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo (so-chee who-lisa ber-may-ho) is the creator and curator of Beyond Baroque’s monthly reading series HITCHED, a founding editor of The Splinter Generation, and was nominated for a 2010 Pushcart Award. Her work has been published in The Los Angeles Review, PALABRA, CALYX and The Acentos Review, and she is the winner of the 2013 Poets & Writers California Writers Exchange. She received an MFA from Antioch University Los Angeles. In August 2011, Xochitl-Julisa volunteered with the Tucson-based direct humanitarian aid organization, No More Deaths. Poems from her manuscript, The Mediation for the Lost and Found, are inspired by her time in the Arizona desert. She teaches high school English and drama in Arcadia, CA.

Live Write winner Caitlin Myer: Her short stories have been published in literary magazines such as Joyland, Things That Are True, and upcoming in Eleven Eleven. Her first novel, Hoodoo, was serialized on Fiction365. She is the founder of the San Francisco-based literary reading series Portuguese Artists Colony, and she lives wherever she puts down her suitcase.

Live write guest Vickie Vértiz: Vickie Vértiz was born and raised in southeast Los Angeles. Her writing explores the intersections of feminism, identity, and Latino sub-cultures through everyday beauty. Her writing is widely anthologized, found in publications such as Open the Door, from McSweeney’s and the Poetry Foundation. Her poetry collection, Swallows was just released by Finishing Line Press. She is a candidate for a Master of Fine Arts degree at UC Riverside.

Sunday, July 14
4-5:30 p.m.
826LA
1714 W. Sunset Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90026
(213) 413-3388

PARKING: There is a large lot behind 826LA and the rest of the businesses on that block. Sunday parking is free!

Swallows Book Release Parties, Bay Area, June 7-9th

Come celebrate the official release of Swallows, my poetry collection just out from Finishing Line Press.

Friday, June 7th
ScholarMatch & McSweeney’s offices, 849 Valencia Street at 19th St., from 7-8 pm
Featuring Maya Chinchilla, Emilie Coulson, Kenji Liu, Aimee Suzara and special guests.

Saturday, June 8
At Aimee Suzara’s Finding the Bones book release
Eastwind Books, 2066 University Ave, Berkeley from 5-7 pm.

Sunday, June 9
At Arisa White’s A Penny Saved book release
Pegasus Books, 2349 Shattuck Avenue, Berkeley, from 7:30-9 pm.

The first book release party was on:
Saturday, May 18th from 12 pm- 3 pm at North Legg Lake, hosted by South El Monte Arts Posse, Aimee Suzara, Kenji Liu, and myself for poems about sassy family pets, lucky cereal bits and being broke in college, with cameos from flying girls.
bookbday-01
I will also be reading in the San Francisco Bay Area on:

Vértiz Featured on KCET’s Departures

As part of the reading series “LAnguage” at the Last Bookstore
hosted by Mike the PoeT Sonkensen, Vickie Vértiz was featured in an article
on KCET’s “Departures” website.

Vickie is thrilled to be included in such an amazing group of women,
including Gloria Alvarez, Marisa Urrutia Gedney, Rachelle Cruz, Zoe Ruiz,
and many other talented poets.

This month’s “LAnguage” reading is Sunday, March 24, 2013, 5-7 PM.
Last Bookstore, 453 South Spring Street at 4th Street. A free event.

Other readers at LAnguage include:
Kenji Liu, Armond Kinard,
Michael C. Ford, Joe Gardner
& singer-songwriter
Jaz James

Vickie will be reading from her latest collection of poetry Swallows, and new
material, recently featured on Juan Felipe Herrera’s website, as LoWriter of the Week.

To view the Facebook event, click here.

KPFA with Luis Rodriguez and Ching-In Chen, Tuesday, February 11, 2013

Tune in to KPFA 94.1 FM, the Bay Area’s Pacifica station, next Tuesday for “Pinay Poet on Setting the Standard.” Vickie will join award-winning Luis Rodriguez (ALWAYS RUNNING); Lee Herrick (GARDENING SECRETS OF THE DEAD), and Ching-In Chen (THE HEART’S TRAFFIC). They’ll discuss getting their work into the world as writers and cultural workers. They will also read from their most recent publications.

To listen the next day at your convenience, go here or to kpfa.org find “Setting the Standard.”

Reading at Skylight Books, Thursday, Feb. 21, 7:30pm

Join Vickie as she reads from her new book Swallows at Rainbow Gathering 4.
It’s the fourth installment of UC Riverside’s ongoing reading series that invites graduate students from the Creative Writing and Writing for the Performing Arts department to share their work with peers and others. So please, join us for a night of prose and poetry at Skylight Books.

Readers include:

Eric Loya
Sara Borjas
Andrew Waddell
Angela Penaredondo
Crystal Salas
Vickie Vertiz

Where: Skylight Books
1818 N. Vermont Ave., Los Angeles, California 90027
FREE
When: Thursday, Feb. 21, 2013, 7:30pm