Melinda Palacio Reading

Sent on behalf of Ruth Roach, English Department:

Dear Colleagues,

Please consider attending, and also informing your students about, the upcoming Author @ Compton Event, sponsored by Academic Affairs, the English Department, and the Student Life Office.

The event features award-winning writer Melinda Palacio, on this upcoming Thursday, November 1, 2012, at 11:30 a.m. in the Student Lounge.

According to her bio, she has a noteworthy personal and professional background:

•          two degrees in comparative literature (a B.A. from Berkeley and an M.A. from UC Santa Cruz)

•          2007 PEN Center USA Emerging Voices Rosenthal Fellow

•          2009 alum of the Squaw Valley Community of Writers

•          2010 her poetry chapbook, Folsom Lockdown, won Kulupi Press' Sense of Place cash prize and publication

•          publication in a variety of journals and anthologies, including Border Senses; Buffalo Carp; Black Renaissance Noire; PALABRA: A Magazine of Chicano/Latino Literary Art, Poets and Artists; Maple Leaf Rag III and IV; La Bloga; Askew Poetry Journal; Latinos in Lotus Land: An Anthology of Contemporary Southern California Literature; Poets of the American West; Strange Cargo; El Tecolote; San Pedro River Review; Pilgrimage Magazine; Quercus Review; Eleven Eleven; the Mas Tequila Review; Hinchas de Poesia; Phati'tude Literary Magazine; 200 New Mexico Poems; the San Diego Poetry Annual; and Southern Poetry Anthology

•          2012 her first novel Ocotillo Dreams is the winner of the Mariposa Award for Best First Book at the 2012 Latino Book Awards at the Instituto Cervantes in Manhattan and 2012 PEN Oakland-Josephine Miles Award for Excellence in Literature

•          2012--Latino Stories named her Top Ten New Latino Author of 2012

•          2012--Glimmer Train Finalist

•          2012--Honorable Mention in April's Family Matter 2012 short story contest

•          October 2012--Tia Chucha Press will publish her full-length poetry book How Fire Is a Story, Waiting.

•          she writes a Friday column for La Bloga.com

•          she grew up in South Central Los Angeles and now lives in Santa Barbara and New Orleans

All are invited to attend. Her work will be available for students and faculty to purchase and have signed on that day. Refreshments will be served.

Ruth Roach,

English Dept.