An evening with the maestro: Juan Felipe Herrera comes to town

The 21st Poet Laureate of the Unites States came to little Silver City this week. The place will never be the same. Herrera was a hurricane of ideas, poetry, stories, music and love. In front of a packed house, he talked (and sang) about his childhood, about his days tending farm animals, about his father’s…

The Role of Radical Publishers: An Interview with PM Press founder Ramsey Kanaan

The following interview explains just why PM Press was my first choice to publish my novel Damnificados. Radical ideas, integrity, an eye for what will sell, and superbly produced books. The interview was conducted by Odette Sheffield at the 2016 World Social Forum in Montreal. ODETTE: Would you describe PM Press as an anarchist publication?…

RIP Tom Hayden 1939-2016

On October 23rd we lost writer/activist/politician Tom Hayden. He’d lived a life of service in the pursuit of social justice. Hayden was one of the original Freedom Riders, journeying to the Deep South in 1961 and getting beaten up for his efforts. The following year, while in jail in Georgia, he drafted the Port Huron…

“The Writer’s Chronicle” tackles racism

This month’s edition of The Writer’s Chronicle contains three essays that deal explicitly with racism: “Ferguson, Whiteness as Default, & the Teaching of Creative Writing” by David Mura; “In Our Way: Racism in Creative Writing” by Claudia Rankine; and “Towards a New Creative Writing Pedagogy” by Fred D’Aguiar. Mura’s essay was, for me, the most…