Nuestra Palabra Presents: Huizache Magazine Spotlight!

Nuestra Palabra: Latino Writers Have Their Say

Today we highlight various authors, poets and educators what have been spotlighted from Huizache Magazine.

Maceo Montoya is an author, visual artist, and educator who has published books in a variety of genres, including four works of fiction: The Scoundrel and the Optimist, The Deportation of Wopper Barraza, You Must Fight Them: A Novella and Stories, and Preparatory Notes for Future Masterpieces. Montoya has also published two works of nonfiction: Letters to the Poet from His Brother, a hybrid book combining images, prose poems, and essays, and Chicano Movement for Beginners, which he both wrote and illustrated. Montoya is a professor of Chicana/o Studies and English at the University of California, Davis where he teaches courses on Chicanx culture, literature, and creative writing. He is editor of the literary magazine Huizache and lives in Woodland, CA.

Dagoberto Gilb was born in the city of Los Angeles, his mother a Mexican who crossed the border illegally, and his father a Spanish-speaking Anglo raised in East Los Angeles. Gilb's first publication was a small press chapbook out of El Paso, Winners on the Pass Line (1985), which came after he won his first literary prize, the James D. Phelan Award from the San Francisco Foundation. The book's first notice was heard on National Public Radio's "All Things Considered" in a review by Alan Cheuse. Gilb went on to earn more recognition, including a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship and the Texas Institute of Letters' Dobie Paisano Fellowship. He lives in Austin, Texas. He has been a visiting writer at the University of Texas at Austin, University of Wyoming, University of Arizona, Vassar, and Cal State Fresno. He is now a tenured professor in the Creative Writing Program at Texas State University, in San Marcos, Texas. He is also the founder of Huizache.

Roberto Ontiveros is an artist, fiction writer, and literary critic. Some of his work has appeared in the Threepenny Review, the Santa Monica Review, Huizache, The Believer, and The Baffler. His collection of stories, The Fight for Space, is published by Stephen F. Austin State University Press. Vincent Cooper is the author of Where the Reckless Ones Come to Die, Aztlan Libre Press 2014, Zarzamora – Poetry of Survival, Jade Publishing 2019 and forthcoming, Infidelis, Mouthfeel Press, Fall of 2023. Cooper’s poems can be found in Huizache 6, Huizache 8, Riversedge Journal, Somos En Escrito, Dryland Lit, co-editor of Good Cop/Bad Cop Anthology, Flowersong Press 2021. He is also a member of the Macondo Writer’s Workshop selected in 2015. Cooper is former United States Marine currently living in the southside of San Antonio, TX.

Yaccaira Salvatierra’s poems have appeared or are forthcoming in POETRY Magazine, The Nation, Huizache, and Rattle among others. Her collection, Sons of Salts, is forthcoming with BOA Editions in 2024. She is a committee organizer for the San Francisco International Flor y Canto Literary Festival and a contributing editor for Huizache. She lives in Oakland, California where she is a dedicated educator to historically marginalized and resilient communities.

Jo Reyes-Boitel is a poet, playwright, and scholar, queer mixed Latinx, and parent, now working on their MFA in Creative Writing at the University of Texas – Rio Grande Valley, where they also serve as a teaching assistant. Their publications include Michael + Josephine (FlowerSong Press, 2019) and the chapbook mouth (Neon Hemlock, 2021). Playing with fire, their book of poetry centered on their upbringing, is forthcoming from Next Page Press in November 2023. “she wears bells”, their hybrid opera, was chosen as a finalist for Guerilla Opera’s 2022 annual virtual festival.

Nuestra Palabra is funded in part by the BIPOC Arts Network Fund.

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