LitHop 2022 - Schedule of Readings
Saturday, October 15th
12 to 12:45 PM
Another World is Possible
Reading Venue: Fresbrew (21 and over)
Alexandros Acedo (he/him), Jasmine Leiva (she/her), Kirk Stone (he/him), Matt Sedillo (he/him)
A call was made out for socialist poets, and these four disgruntled yet hopeful poets showed up. They will share on the state of the world, the zeitgeist, politics, and culture. We see the harm, pain, and suffering in the world, and know, that another world is possible.
Fresno City College Student Poets
Reading Venue: Labyrinth Art Collective
Fresno City College student poets Emilie Cunha, Jamie Gilliland, Christine Henderson, Anjali Kapoor-Davis, Katie Quigley, Carlos Rodriguez, and Alyssa Webster will read their original work.
The Loud Mouth Poetry Jam Presents: The Mid-Valley Mystics
Reading Venue: The Revue (Backroom)
Tino Rayos (he/him), Isaias the Hero (he/him), Maritza "La Mariposa" Altamirano (she/her), Shane Lara Jr. (he/him)
Throughout this Summer, Visalia's Loud Mouth Poetry Jam has brought together 4 poets from all across the Central Valley to be our representative team for various competitions across California and within the National Slam community. This reading will culminate into a showcase of each of these poets' individual growth over the season as well as group performances and the stories behind the poems. The Central Valley has always been home to some of the World's best poets, and the Mid-Valley Mystics prove that to still be true!
Please Pull Your Mask Up: Teaching Stories From Pandemia
Reading Venue: Spectrum Art Gallery
Gabi Cruz-Brittsan (she/her/hers), Alison Mandaville, René Rodríguez Astacio (he/him/él), Jacob Simmons (he/him/his)
Zoom boxes, absenteeism, faces, masks, drive-by graduations, returning to no-normal. It has been quite a ride in our classrooms the past couple of years – for all of us. Four Central Valley creative writers and English teachers, both high school and college, read with love and passion from their multi-genre works on teaching and learning and escaping and surviving during the pandemic.
Dark Comedy
Reading Venue: Splash Fresno (21 and over)
James Espinoza, Apryl Lewis, Lisa Lieberman, Liz Scheid
Tragedy + time = humor is the age-old equation for comedy. Dark comedy, or “gallows humor,” coined by Sigmund Freud in the 1920s, describes the humorous response elicited by hopelessness and despair. But, perhaps, Woody Allen, a king of dark comedy says it best in his film Annie Hall: “There's an old joke - um... two elderly women are at a Catskill mountain resort, and one of 'em says, ‘Boy, the food at this place is really terrible.’ The other one says, ‘Yeah, I know; and such small portions.’ Well, that's essentially how I feel about life - full of loneliness, and misery, and suffering, and unhappiness, and it's all over much too quickly.”
1 to 1:45 PM
Helter Skelter
Reading Venue: Fresbrew (21 and over)
Will Freeney (he/him/them), Linnea Alexander (she/her), Jack Chavoor (he/him), Dani Potter (she/her)
Change is not necessarily progress. Chaos prevails.
Grief Goes to Breathe
Reading Venue: Hart’s Haven Used Bookstore
L.S. Arévalo (she/her/ella), Melody Rose (she/her), Lizard Person, Chelsea Jones
Four Californians combine in time to share works centered around themes of grief: death, loss, and the mixed emotions in between. Grief comes in many forms and at any time, now taking respite in the words collected and shared of in the breath of these poets and writers.
grief and other friends
Reading Venue: Labyrinth Art Collective
Haley White (she/they), Thomas Nance (he/him), Laura Splotch (she/we/us), Alicia Rodriguez (she/her)
Four members of The Fools Collaborative share favorite personal readings on grief, healing, and resilience of spirit. This ain't no funeral, though. Joy and humor are invited to the party, and those bitches always show up when they're least expected.
Long Time, Here and Gone
Reading Venue: The Revue (Backroom)
Megan Anderson Bohigian, Corrinne Clegg Hales, John Hales, C.G. Hanzlicek
Three poets and an essayist come together to read from their new and published work. In strikingly different ways, each of these writers' are known for profound connections to the natural world and their personal geography--the known world of their conscious, observant, reflective lives--as well as their antipodes. These experiences, closely examined and wrought in poetry and prose, shed light on what it is to be human.
Poetry Meets Film: From Page to Screen
Reading Venue: Splash Fresno (21 and over)
David Campos (he/him), Ruben Quesada, Cynthia Guardado (she/her/hers), Rachelle Cruz
The big screen in our minds is always there when we read. But what happens when poets reach beyond text on a page and fill a screen for a much more immersive experience of literature. 4 poets from around the country are ready to move you through film.
Taming the Beast: Nonfiction Writers Wrestling with Mental Health
Reading Venue: Spectrum Art Gallery
Steven Church (he/him), Rebecca Evans (she/her), Hillary Adams, Optimism One
Writers of nonfiction essays and memoir from California, Nevada, and Idaho, connected through the Sierra Nevada University MFA Program will share personal writing focused on some of the challenges, successes, and sublime or bizarre moments in the struggle toward mental health and self-care.
Between the Paper & the Words: Students from Clovis Community College
Reading Venue: Teazers
Danny Avila, Jessika Torres
Student poets and writers from Clovis Community College will read their original work.
2 to 2:45 PM
At the Intersection
Reading Venue: Labyrinth Art Collective
Carolina Mata (she/her), Sydney Hinton (she/her), Karissa Ellison (she/her), Melinda Medeiros (she/her)
We are women writers; some of us queer, some of us fat, some of us brown. All of us fresh out of finishing a writing program (MFA) in the midst of a global pandemic. All of us exploring the intersections we know: families, social constructs, systems of oppression, and so much more. All trying to trace the roads that led us here, find the roads that will lead us out, and celebrate the roads that bring us together.
Poets de Fresno: It Calls You Back
Reading Venue: The Revue (Backroom)
Brotha Kenneth Chacón (he/him/that vato), Joseph Rios (he/him), Marisol Baca (she/her), Sylvia Savala (she/her)
Xican@ poets with deep Fresno roots.
A Reading with the San Joaquin Literary Association
Reading Venue: Splash Fresno (21 and over)
Rosie Bates, Mialise Carney, Amber Carpenter, sami h. tripp (they/m)
Two essayists, a poet, and a fiction writer walk into a bar…to read a selection of their latest work. Representing Fresno State’s MFA program and the San Joaquin Literary Association, their work explores themes of gender and sexuality, grief and anxiety, and the complicated (power)lessness of owning a body. With a balance of sincerity and humor, they will take you on a journey through the dark in search of a truth that is sharp and shining.
Primxs in Grief
Reading Venue: Spectrum Art Gallery
Crystal AC Salas (she/her/ella), Nicholas Reiner (he/him), Angel Dominguez, Sara Borjas (she/her)
Four Latinx writers from four different corners of California join together to read from their new works which engage with the idea of grief as inherited through their raizes, also further thickened by systemic oppressions upon their communities. However heavy the theme, this will not solely be a reading about suffering, but rather the resistance required to find the beauty in survival, the refusal to forget, the fight in carrying not on, but through. Multitudes. These explorations of community grieving connect these poets not by blood, but rather as primxs in poem.
American Dreaming
Reading Venue: Teazers
Michael Cantu, Andy Marin Contreras, Alberto Saldaña Uribe, Cristina Sandoval
Four poets exploring the effects of family, life, and death while striving to advance in an increasingly hostile American society.
3 to 3:45 PM
The Poets' Terroir
Reading Venue: Fresbrew (21 and over)
Victor Trejo, Angela Chaidez Vincent, Kirk Stone, Megan Anderson Bohigian
Four poets explore the intersections of place and poetry, the landscapes that become our personal geographies–how we walk their paths and are shaped by them, how we translate our personal terroir into wordscapes that imbue our poems.
Central Valley Writers Collective
Reading Venue: Hart’s Haven Used Bookstore
Albert Valencia (he/him), Guadalupe Friaz (she/her), Juan Flores (he/him), Albert Valencia (he/him)
Within the barrios of Watts, Compton, and Pico/Union in Los Angeles with poverty, racism, gangs, drugs, and violence all around me the whispers of a future drew me onto a path that is confusing, frustrating, but hopeful. Writing down stories as small swatches of a few words written on paper napkins, newspapers, and on scratch paper. As time passed I wrote on an ironing board, on the floor, in darkened rooms, and in the end I always felt better. The stories became my autobiography, Latin Boy Shuffle, it helped me to find forgiveness and resolution.
!Speaking Axolotl; El Fresno Edition!
Reading Venue: Labyrinth Art Collective
Josiah Luis Alderete (he/him), Hector son of Hector (he/him), Mimi Tempestt (she/they), Rosie Angelica Alonso
Speaking Axolotl, La Area Bahia's long running Latinx monthly reading series and open mic, brings San Pancho y Oakland poetas to Fresno soil for a beautiful evening of Spanglish Flor Y Canto, Pocho Poesia, and Latinx Cuentos. Poetas include Tatiana Luboviski-Acosta (author; The Easy Body y La Movida), Hector Son Of Hector, Mimi Tempestt (author The Monumental Misrememberings), and Josiah Luis Alderete (author Baby Axolotls & Old Pochos).
Crossing Fields: Coming to Creative Nonfiction from Different Directions
Reading Venue: The Revue (Backroom)
Steven Church (he/him), Brynn Saito (she/her), Alison Mandaville (she/her), Charles Radke (he/him)
Four writers with personal, professional, or academic backgrounds in another field or discipline share their creative nonfiction work on family, history, and the sublime or wonderous moments of everyday lives.
Relax!
Reading Venue: Splash Fresno (21 and over)
Linnea Alexander, Armen Bacon, Phyllis Brotherton, Corrinne Clegg Hales
Ellen Bass in her poem, “Relax,” relates the Buddhist story of a woman, chased by a tiger, who comes to a cliff. Forced to climb down a vine, she also sees a tiger below, and is faced with how to survive this dilemma. The poem begins, "Bad things are going to happen./Your tomatoes will grow a fungus/and your cat will get run over." Four accomplished women authors, septuagenarians all, read new works from their journey thus far. With themes of joy and loss, loves and laments, all vowing to, as the story goes, “Eat the strawberry.”
The Uncanny Valleys: Asian Pacific Islander & Latinx • e Dispatches from the Two Californias
Reading Venue: Spectrum Art Gallery
Lisa Lee Herrick (she/her), Joseph Rios (he/him), Janice Lobo Sapigao (she/her), Von Torres (he/him/his)
Writers who love and work in both the San Francisco Bay Area and Central Valley read work straddling East and West of Interstate 5: slick Silicon Valley versus hard-scrabble Central Valley.
Place and Belonging: Four MoSt Poets
Reading Venue: Teazers
Gillian Wegener (she/her/hers), Linda Scheller (she/her/hers), Gary Thomas (he/him/his), Stella Beratlis (she/her/hers)
Four founding board members of the Modesto-Stanislaus Poetry Center (MoSt Poetry) will read poetry of place and belonging from their published books as well as new work.
4 to 4:45 PM
Raices En Cuatro Direcciones/Roots In Four Directions
Reading Venue: Fresbrew (21 and over)
Masiel Monserrat Corona (she/her), Francisco Duarte (he/him), Itzel Xochicuicatl, Aideed Medina
This reading will be in Spanish and some Nauahtl without English translation. These poets write intending to keep, find, and create a connection to their families, culture, homeland, and ancestry. Writing in a language other than English is a conscious act of resistance for these poets. All four poets actively create spaces for live multilingual poetry readings in Fresno, statewide, and internationally. The four life experiences of each of our readers represent the four directions in this reading. Each of these poets offers a different root system in contemporary US Spanish poetry—elder knowledge, women's rights, environmental advocacy, and cultural awareness.
Witchy Writing
Reading Venue: Hart’s Haven Used Bookstore
Carolina Mata (she/her/hers), Juan Huerta (they/them), Amber Carpenter, Jaie Noelle
Four writers from the Central Valley of various backgrounds come together to explore the aspect of the witch through their latest pieces. Whether it be through magical characters or writing as an act of magic itself to express self-identity, this reading is dedicated to the witches, brujas, healers, and magic found in our literary community. Some themes to be explored are mysticism as a form of self-expression, partaking in community, and a reclamation of power within a postcolonial society. Magic is a subversion of linear thought, rooted in deep cultural beliefs that push against the grain of normativity.
Our Place In The Universe, Our Place In The World
Reading Venue: Labyrinth Art Collective
Ethan Chatagnier (he/him), Carole Firstman, Talia Lakshmi Kolluri (she/her), Jim Schmidt
Four Fresno-based writers share excerpts from both finished books and works-in-progress examining our place in the world, and the world’s place in the greater universe. Touching on themes of family, communication, survival, conservation, philosophy, and connection, each reading will immerse readers in a fully formed environment where our interdependence on the natural world and our curiosity about the universe beyond are both revealed through fascinating characters and absorbing plots.
Little Monsters Everywhere
Reading Venue: The Revue (Backroom)
J.J. Hernandez, Monique Quintana, Marisol Baca, David Campos
Fantastic beasts lift their heads from glistening canal waters, packs of wild dogs run breathless in the almond orchards, something green is hiding in the sunflower bed. Everyone has a little monster inside them. Sometimes those monsters are those that haunt us. Four poets write about the things that scare them.
Here and QUEER
Reading Venue: Splash Fresno (21 and over)
Arielle K. Jones (she/her), Sara Borjas (she/hers), Steven Sanchez, Ying Thao
Four Queer writers share their work illuminating the Queerness of Fresno and the Central Valley.
Practice Makes Better If Not Perfect
Reading Venue: Spectrum Art Gallery
David Borofka, Ronald Dzerigian, Janet Nichols Lynch, Chuck Radke
Like most writers, we have all tried other artistic ventures first (visual arts, music, sculpture, and bowling), and regardless of success or failure, we have come to know the crossover benefits of practice and perseverance as well as endurance and dogged determination. We read to celebrate the arrival of new books in the world!
They Rise Like a Wave Anthology
Reading Venue: Teazers
Devadutta Laskar, Preeti Kaur Rajpal, Shelly Wong, C.E. Shue
Our readers are from the 80+ contributors to the recently published They Rise Like a Wave: An Anthology of Asian American Women Poets by Blue Oak Press. Some 30 or so live in California. This is a political anthology that focuses on women's rights, particularly Asian American Women.
5 to 6 PM
Special Event
Reading Venue: The Revue (Backroom)
Home Again: A Tribute Reading for Kamilah Okafor
Nancy Hernandez, Jacqueline Huertaz, Arielle K. Jones, Monique Quintana, Steven Sanchez, Brenda Venezia
This tribute reading will celebrate the creative life of the writer, community organizer, and south valley native, Kamilah Okafor. Okafor's work meditates on Black spirituality, the speculative, the politicized workplace, and leaving home and circling back again. Six of her friends will read from her writing and her muses.
