1 to 1:45 PM
Mobile Data Mag and Systemic Dreaming Showcase
Reading Venue: Mi Cafecito
Alexis Jaimes
Oswaldo Vargas
Sunshine Nausea
Grace (Water for Tea)
Mobile Data Mag and Systemic Dreaming are online literary journals on Substack and Threads that are home to non-English writing. Writers (that you should get to know) are in California (whether born and raised or not) and beyond.
Sad Girl/ Sad Boi
Reading Venue: Sourmilk
Nikolai Garcia
soledad con carne
Rhiannon Cielos Chavez
Guadalupe Salgado Partida
How do sad girl aesthetics translate unto the page? How does memory factor in? Is it strictly gendered? Is it all just kittens and dreamy playlists? Four California crybabies (i.e. poets) will bring sad grrl aesthetics to life and answer all these questions. Mazzy Star will be invoked.
Wrecked in the Golden State: Life Across the Decades
Reading Venue: Teazer’s World Market
Chloe Abella
Anya Connelly-Howland
Sharon K. McClain
Jacob Simmons
Hailing from three distinct decades, these four California-born writers contribute unique perspectives shaped by their times. With personal histories marked by child neglect and abuse, addiction, and mental illness, they confront these traumas using creative nonfiction as a means of healing and truth-telling. All four writers are connected through the Fresno State Creative Writing MFA program—three are current students, and one is an alumnus.
Voices of the Central Valley and Beyond: Loudmouth Style
Reading Venue: Spectrum Art Gallery
Kwamise Fletcher
Michael Jasso
Julian Blackmon
Papi Grande
While each piece stands on its own, the set is curated like a mini-journey. Themes echo and pivot, threads intertwine...by the end, you’re carried through a collective narrative framed by urgency, solidarity, and hope.
In a nutshell
A Team Loudmouth reading is an immersion...a curated storm of personal testament, Central Valley heritage, collective pulse, and poetry as sonic activism. It’s unapologetic, emotionally full, and affirming of every voice that raised its hand in the room.
Trenches Full of Poets
Reading Venue: Hart's Haven Used Bookstore
Laura Sermeño
Maestro
Grace Olguin
Mauricio 'Soul on Fire' Moreno
For the past three years, Trenches Full of Poets, a reading series at Page Against the Machine bookstore in Long Beach, CA. has been featuring some of the most radical and diverse poets from throughout Los Angeles and beyond.
We’re bringing together four fierce poets to create a poetic soundtrack for these times of protest and political turmoil. Expect words of rage and resistance.
Rooting Past Trauma
Reading Venue: Tower Yoga: LOTUS ROOM
Angelina Leaños
Taylor Seals
Chou Xiong
Chou Xiong
Four graduating MFA students at Fresno State cross diverse cultural backgrounds to explore generational conflicts that arise from the effects of migration, culture, and trauma. Their writing reclaims the ways these experiences shape the self, family, communities, and the world at large.
¡Speaking Axolotl El Fresnasos Edition!
Reading Venue: Goldstein’s
Josiah Luis Aldrete
Lourdes Figueroa
Mimi Tempestt
Maria Guerrero
Speaking Axolotl, the Bay Area’s long running monthly Latine Reading series presents a very LitHop reading. Come gather and hear decolonized verses, spanglish poesia, Latine spokenword, Pocho poems and neighborhood chisme.
Members of Read Local: San Joaquin Valley
Reading Venue: Cell Pros
Lena Mubsutina
Lena Mubsutina
Ben Sanchez
Annie Mack
A melange of poetry, mystery, and fantasy from professional writers.