My 12-Year Love Affair
by Erika Ayón
From: Women Who Submit
It began 12 years ago, the concept for my poetry collection Orange Lady. It was 2006, that summer I had gone to VONA (Voices of Our Nation Arts Foundation) in San Francisco, where I had taken a writing workshop with Chris Abani. At VONA, I connected with writers who also lived in Los Angeles, and upon my return, through them, I learned about Ruth Forman’s poetry workshops. It was in these workshops held at Ruth’s home in Los Angeles surrounded by willow trees and included Tai Chi lessons taught by her that the poetry collection came to me. Ruth always showed immense compassion toward our writing process and lovingly gave us permission to just write. That permission to just write sparked this emotional surge in me, and I wrote without care or judgment, with pure reckless abandonment. It was in these workshops that I began compiling the poems that would ultimately become part of my first poetry collection Orange Lady.
I can’t help myself: I dress up to go see her. It’s 9 am on a Thursday morning when I leave my house, 50-some degrees in Los Angeles and so windy that palm trees are curved and swaying, my car trembling with exertion on the freeway.
The city and Southland’s free books-and-authors festival returns for its 7th year with two days of panels, discussions, readings, workshops, performances, and literary activities. Over 150 authors and special guest speakers will appear in over 50 events from the afternoon into the late evening. LitFest Pasadena is held throughout the historic Pasadena Playhouse District at Vroman’s Bookstore, the Pasadena Playhouse, and other local establishments.
The literacy and writing organization 826LA is releasing the 15th Young Authors’ Book Project anthology Through the Same Halls: Journeys of Elders Born and Raised in South Central and Beyond, alongside the publication’s student authors and the vibrant, intergenerational communities of Manual Arts Senior High School Toilers and South LA on Friday, April 27 at WITH LOVE Market & Cafe.
It’s Saturday April 14th and the crowd is large. Café Con Libros is silent. There are no empty seats when I arrive so I stand. I’m in Pomona’s Art Colony for Obsidian Tongues, an open mic hosted by William Gonzalez and Ceasar K. Avelar
There is more good news to report from the Los Ángeles literary community. Novelist Alex Espinoza, author of Still Water Saints (Random House, 2007) and The Five Acts of Diego Leon (Random House, 2013), and Professor and Director MFA Program in Creative Writing and Literary Arts at Cal State L.A., posted the following on Facebook the other day:
Over the past two weeks more good news has come to the Los Ángeles-Long Beach literary community. Two accolades for a spoken word album that a L.A. poet has two tracks on, and an honor for a poet writing about El Salvador and Salvadorian issues, plus two poetry releases.
Los Angeles Literature 