El Martillo Press @ City Lights
El Martillo Press Presents: Tshaka Campbell, Lorna Dee Cervantes, Paul S. Flores, Margaret Elysia Garcia, and Briana Muñoz, and for an evening of readings and merriment.
Founded by Matt Sedillo and David A. Romero, El Martillo Press publishes writers whose pens strike the page with clear intent; words with purpose to pry apart assumed norms and to hammer away at injustice. El Martillo Press launched with international ambitions and has published writers throughout Europe and Latin America with an to expand into Africa and Asia. In all places and spaces El Martillo Press proactively publishes writers looking to pound the pavement to promote their work and the work of their fellow pressmates on every street corner and in every corner of the globe.
El Martillo Press: the builder of bridges and the destroyer of walls.
About the readers:
Tshaka Campbell
Poet Laureate Emeritus, Santa Clara County. Originally from London England, Tshaka Campbell was raised on his father’s teachings of solidarity and brought up on orators the likes of Garvey’s ‘Pan-Africanism’ to William Churchill, as such, he adopted his father’s intense love of language.
Paul S. Flores
Winner of the American Book Award 2024, Paul S. Flores is one of the most influential Latino performance artists in the country and a nationally respected arts educator. He creates plays, oral narratives, and spoken word about transnationality and citizenship that spur and support societal movements that lead to change.
Margaret Elysia Garcia
Macondo fellow Margaret Elysia Garcia is the author of Graft, a collection of Chicanx noir short stories set in Southern California and published by Tolsun Press, the daughterland published by El Martillo Press, and the poetry chapbook Burn Scars published by the Lit Kit Collective. She’s the co-editor of Red Flag Warning: Northern Californians Living with Fire to be published by HeyDay books in 2024.
Briana Muñoz
Briana Muñoz is a poet from Southern California. She is the author of Loose Lips (Prickly Pear Publishing, 2019), Everything is Returned to the Soil (FlowerSong Press, 2021) and the forthcoming Matriarchy (El Martillo Press, 2025).
Lorna Dee Cervantes
Born in San Francisco, raised in San José, Barrio Horseshoe, Lorna Dee Cervantes was a self-taught activist by 15, taught herself how to run her own printing press and was Founding Editor/Publisher of MANGO Publications at 20, and author of the American Book Award winning EMPLUMADA at 24. A XícanIndX poet (Chumash/Purépecha), Cervantes (PhD/ABD, History of Consciousness) was a Professor of English for 20 years at the University of Colorado, Boulder, serving as Director of Creative Writing.
To learn more about El Martillo Press visit their website.
This event made possible by support from the City Lights Foundation.