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Payments are due! Zoom links and more information will be sent to participants Friday 19th before classes begin Saturday 20th.
Payments are due! Zoom links and more information will be sent to participants Friday 19th before classes begin Saturday 20th.
email: somsoenescrito@gmail.com with any questions.
Many writing workshops are overpriced and do not serve our Mexican American/Chicano community. Our storytellers, poets, and thinkers are not nurtured or given as many opportunities and so our voice as a people becomes drowned out or dictated by others.
Palabras del Pueblo Writing Workshop is intended be financially accessible for raza to learn to better express themselves so our existence and values can be heard with clarity with no doubts to what they are and what we are. We intend the workshop to be a place to acquire tools, inspiration, and contacts for Chicana/o/x writers.
When & Where
The classes are ONLINE and take place over two weekends to accommodate work and family schedules. Class times are 9am to 1pm PST May 20, 21 and May 27-28, 2023. There will be a mid-week panel and/or writing exercise each week.
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Deadline to apply has been extended to May 8, 2023.
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PICK YOUR CLASS!
POETRY
The Personal is Political
With matt Sedillo
Join internationally renowned, world traveling poet Matt Sedillo as he guides workshop attendants to explore the events of their own lives as the product of broader historical forces. Using a multi prompt strategy Sedillo's simple but effective workshop ties the struggles of the individual to the struggles of the community while also arguing that no individual crisis can be truly solved without solving the crisis the community is facing. Your story is part of the bigger story of your people. Tell that story, awaken your people. The personal is political.
Writing Like A Chicana:
The Whole Enchilada
With Lorna Dee Cervantes
This intensive poetry workshop presents the whole enchilada of writing like the "best" Chicana poets, according to Indigenous New Mexican Chicana poet & literary critic, Prof. Cordelia Candelaria. Divided into the 4 phases of the Creative/Critical Process (GENeration/ SELection/ RE-Vision/ CRITical Evaluation) each session will introduce and explore Candelaria's four "I/ eye/ ¡ay!/ hay"s of a "good" Chicana poem. Focus will be on our work. All levels. Simon que sí es bilingual. (You need not be.) Be prepared to write. Be Brave. Be Real. Be Critical. Be There. Anywhere. ¿Y qué?
FICTION
the lore of a life story/wandering worlds
WITH RIOS DE LA LUZ
Fiction and creative nonfiction with Rios de la Luz. This generative writing workshop will focus on creative nonfiction on day 1 to create a mythos based on lived experiences. We will be loosely writing from body memories and geographic memories. On day 2, we will focus on fiction and generate stories without fear of being too weird, too wild, too experimental. Prompts will focus on writing from a space of meandering and wandering in storytelling and then we will focus on character and forming a space for them in a short story or flash fiction triptych (narrative braid with three themes connecting a story or character). I want to create a space to provide practical and productive feedback based on your voice while also encouraging and pushing writers to explore traditional forms of storytelling. Optional reading will be provided one week before classes start and in between as means of inspiration.
Day 1 -- The Lore of a Life Story: Writing a mythos based on your lived experiences
Day 2 -- Wandering Worlds: Meandering Fiction
Day 3 -- Expansion: Building from themes in your short story/flash fiction triptych
Day 4 -- Exploration: Writing together and Sharing Work
Goal for the workshop: One completed short story (under 3,500 words) or a completed one flash fiction triptych (Under 3,500 words)
Papí sci-fi's ancient chicano wisdom
With ernest hogan
Ernest Hogan was born in East L.A. during the Atomic Age and his mother’s maiden name is Garcia. His 40 years of writing and publishing science fiction and other strange things have caused some call him the Father of Chicano Science Fiction, though there has not yet been a DNA test.
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He is now willing to share his vast Ancient Chicano Sci-Fi Wisdom. Come, learn about how to use the weirdness of the Latinoid Continuum in your writing, and how to market yourself to the Anglo-centric publishing industry, use the social media for self-promotion, as well as hear outrageous—sometimes hair-raising—firsthand anecdotes of living a professional writer’s life.
Ernest will also answer your questions, wants this to be an interactive experience, hopes to learn a few things himself, and maybe even get his mind blown.
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Goal for the workshop: During the course of the workshop, he will start and write a story, sharing how he does it, and help the students do the same.
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Then we will all set our creations loose on an unsuspecting world . . .
screenwriting
speculative fiction from nepantla
with Juan G. Berumen
If you were to journey through the borderlands, what stories would you encounter? Would they be of curanderas driving lowriding hovercrafts exorcising those possessed by The Curse of El Mal Ojo?
For our gente, speculative fiction allows us the freedom to tell similar stories unfiltered without fearing the straitjacket while also envisioning wildly new worlds and possibilities.
GOAL: This script writing workshop intends to do just that and provide a community of speculative fiction enthusiasts (Fantasy/Magical realism, Sci Fi, Alternative histories, horror) the required support for each of us to tell a great story that is as distinctive, sublime, curious, playful, and totally unique as our lived experiences and imagination.
This two-week workshop is opened to storytellers of all levels—from inspired novice to seasoned pro. At each session (total of four), participants will share at least four-pages (2 scenes max) to be table read for supportive and structured feedback. By the end, participants should have at least a rough first draft of a short or at least one act to a full length script, either for the screen or stage.
social justice writing
rise! the importance of raza stories
with vanessa bustamante, aka Homegirl Doctora
The purpose of this workshop is to empower raza students to use different modalities to amplify and document their stories.
GOAL: Students will learn the importance of storytelling and of archiving and documenting, so raza stories are no longer marginalized and erased.
Photojournalism
​Basic Photojournalism Workshop
with – Dave Weinstock, Ph.D
Photojournalism describes photography merged with the core of journalism: news values. News values are the characteristics of news stories. They are timeliness, proximity, impact, prominence, novelty and conflict/controversy.
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GOAL: Comprised of at least one—but generally several—news values, each photo tells a story, whether it stands alone or is part of a larger presentation. The single element common to nearly every example of photojournalism is the presence of people, interacting with each other, an object or the world, in one sense or another.
Required Tools Access to a desktop or laptop computer throughout the length of the workshop Camera – either a SLR camera with a wide angle and telephoto lens or a cell phone camera Pixlr Express web site (apps available for Andriod and Apple) Zoom (free) software Teamviewer (free) software Optimally, students should possess a single-lens reflex camera equipped with wide angle and telephoto lens. However, students in this workshop can be just as well served using iPhone or Android cellular cameras. Additionally, a copy of any version of Photoshop Creative Suite would be the ideal software suite for post-production purposes. However, there is a free online tool called Pixlr Express that will serve this purpose just as well.
Instructors
Juan G. Berumen
Juan G. Berumen, PhD. Raised in the Bay Area, Juan is a teatrista and filmmaker who positions storytelling for self-expression while empowering our communities and transforming society. Currently, Juan is an Ethnic Studies Lecturer at UC Berkeley and is in production for his second short film Recetas. He is also an editor for Somos En Escrito, a press dedicated to publishing our storytellers, which typically get overlooked by mainstream presses.
Lorna Dee Cervantes
Lorna Dee Cervantes is an American poet and activist, who is considered one of the greatest figures in Chicano poetry. She has been described by Alurista, as "probably the best Chicana poet active today."
Homegirl Doctora
Dr. Vanessa Marie Bustamante is a self-identified first-generation, bilingual, queer Xicana sCHOLAr. Born and raised in the San Fernando Valley, CA, she has has a deep-rooted appreciation for community involvement, engagement and advocacy. Known as the Homegirl Doctora, Vanessa serves as a motivational speaker, trainer, and workshop presenter.
Author website: https://www.homegirldoctora.com/
Ernest Hogan
Ernest Hogan, the Father of Chicano Science Fiction, was born in East L.A., his mother's maiden name is Garcia. He is the author of High Aztech, Smoking Mirror Blues, Cortez on Jupiter and many works of short fiction. He blogs at mondoernesto.com and labloga.blogspot.com and has finished another novel.
Author website: http://www.mondoernesto.com/
Rios de la Luz
Rios de la Luz is the author of the short story collection, The Pulse between Dimensions and the Desert (Ladybox Books 2015), and the novella, Itzá (Broken River Books 2017). Her upcoming collection, An Altar of Stories to Liminal Saints is forthcoming in May 2023 from Broken River Books.
Author website: https://riosdelaluz.blog/
Matt Sedillo
Matt Sedillo has been described as the "best political poet in America" as well as "the poet laureate of the struggle." His work has drawn comparisons in print to Bertolt Brecht, Roque Dalton, Amiri Baraka, Alan Ginsberg, Carl Sandburg and various other legends of the past.
Sedillo was the recipient of the 2017 Joe Hill Labor Poetry award, a panelist at the 2020 Texas book festival, a participant in the 2012 San Francisco International Poetry Festival, the 2022 Elba Poetry Festival, and the recipient of the 2022 Dante's Laurel.
Matt Sedillo is the author of Mowing Leaves of Grass (FlowerSong Press, 2019) and City on the Second Floor (FlowerSong Press, 2022). Both of which are taught at universities throughout the country.
Sedillo is the current literary director of The Mexican Cultural Institute of Los Angeles.
Author website: https://www.mattsedillo.com/
Dave Weinstock
Dave Weinstock has been a life long science and technology journalist and photojournalist since 1981, and a journalism educator since 1991. He earned at bachelors degree in advertising from Penn State University and a PhD in journalism and telecommunications at Michigan State University.
Who we are
Palabras del Pueblo Writing Workshop is a collaboration with Somos en escrito Literary Foundation and MeXicanos 2070.
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Somos en escrito Literary Foundation is a small press and literary magazine dedicated to nurturing and raising awareness of raza writers. Started by Armando Rendon in 2009, several of its publications have placed in the International Latino Book Awards.
MeXicanos 2070 is a thinkcollective dedicated to preserving and enhancing Mexican American culture.
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