PALABRA PURA: MEMORY AND GHOSTS

Curated by Cynthia Pelayo

October 21 @ 7:30 PM – 9:00 PM

$5 | La Bruquena Restaurant, 2726 W. Division in Humboldt Park

This month’s curator, Cynthia Pelayo, provides the Guild Literary Complex with our October theme of Memory and Ghosts, featuring readings by Diana Pando, Adriana Galvan. Pelayo explains the theme this way: “historically, autumn has been the time of year to reflect on difficult work conducted that generated one’s harvest.

“While many of us in an urban environment cannot relate to the dedicated tasks of tending, watering and nurturing soil in order to produce we can all agree that autumn is a great time of transition. Many of us even comment that during fall the air smells different. We can see the color of the leaves shift and fade, and these are the hints that death is coming. Winter blankets us in death, covering life, but we know that life is renewed again in spring. The artists will join together in a series of readings that address cultural ideas of life and death in a celebration of autumn. We will reflect on the living and the dead. Here, words will welcome memory and ghosts.”

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Diana Pando is a writer from Chicago who loves telling stories. She recently published her poem Mythology of Fleshand Turquoise Serpents in the Offerings of Flesh Anthology by Mujeres de Maiz (2014 – California) and  Coyolxauhqui Rising in Cenzontle Literary Magazine.  She has been a featured poet at Logan’s Run Reading Series and featured storyteller at 2nd Story. Her work has also been spotlighted on WBEZ’s Afternoon Shift as well as Vocalo.org. Currently, she is a co-founder of the Chicago Latino Writers Initiative and a founding member of Proyecto Latina. She also teaches her signature writing workshop Puro Cuento. http://chicagolatinowriters.com/directory/diana-pando/

Adriana Galvan is a multi-genre writer whose passion for storytelling began at a young age when she would listen to her late grandmother share stories about growing up in Northern Mexico and later immigrating to Northwest Indiana. She received her BA in Fiction Writing from Columbia College Chicago and is currently working on her first novel, In a Distant Dream. She resides in Chicago, but spends many weekends with her family in East Chicago, Indiana.http://chicagolatinowriters.com/directory/adriana-galvan/

Cynthia Pelayo’s first novel Santa Muerte (Post Mortem Press, 2012) is an International Latino Book Award winner in the category of Young Adult Fiction. The sequel, Santa Muerte: The Missing, will be released in 2016, as well as a poetry collection. Pelayo is also the owner and publisher of Burial Day Books. Her short stories have appeared in The Horror Zine, Danse Macabre, MicroHorror, Seedpod Publishing, Static Movement, Flashes in the Dark, among other publications. Her nonfiction work has appeared in Gozamos, Time Out, Extra Bilingual News, Venus Zine, FNews, Atlas Obscura, and The Richest. She lives in Chicago with her husband and her son. www.cinapelayo.com