by Michael Sedano
From: La Bloga

Living room floricantos fill a home with gente and arte for a few memorable hours, the perfect way to celebrate friends, community, culture, a whole lot of good things. For liz gonzález, Saturday afternoon celebrated the publication of her recent collection, Dancing in the Santa Ana Winds: Poems y Cuentos  New and Selected.

I wish my Dad and Mom were still around to sit with us. gonzález’ work would have tickled them pink, literature of the valley, Berdoo, Rialto, Colton. Places we grew up in. My Dad courted my Mom in Cucamonga, took her to the Azteca on la Mt. Vernon for movies. liz gonzález’ family knew these streets at the same time.

My parents loved reading and believed literature from our experience impossible. And here’s liz gonzález, writing and growing up in the part of town I was born in. My abuelita made tortillas at the tortilleria behind Las Cuatro Milpas on Mt. Vernon. liz’ grandmother certainly ate tortillas my great-grandmother made by hand. I sure did. Maybe liz’ grandmother was one of the helpful people my mother talked about when we went to the old haunts.

I’ve enjoyed hearing the author, photographing her reading her own stuff, over years of attending eastside and northeast readings, “here’s a page from my unfinished novel.” There’s a conecta between liz and me that extends beyond her readings and writing into something elemental. On that account, Casa Sedano had to host a reading of her stuff. When I invited liz to bring Dancing In the Santa Ana Winds to the house, she said she’d do it and so we did.

My wife and I used to frequent literary events, sabes, but like the song goes, we don’t get around much any more, so having the Living Room Floricanto and Dancing In the Santa Ana Winds reading here, solved a great need in our lives. You know what they say about bread alone. We don’t eat much bread here. Read Rest of Article Here