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LJR
WEBLOG
Visit the author's web log for his latest
opinions, poems, news, information on book
tours, speaking engangements, and much more!
My
Name's Not Rodriguez, LJR's spoken
word/music CD is in its second printing
- and it's now available at Bestbuy,
Tower Records, and Cdbaby.com.
Details here.
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Rodriguez's
account of his coming of age is vivid, raw, fierce,
and fearless. Here's truth no television set burning
night and day, could ever begin to offer.
-Gary Soto, New York
Times Book Review
Rodriguez's
proven commitment to healing and justice for his
community gives his writing authenticity and thus
authority.
-Sojourners Magazine
Bravo,
Luis Rodriguez, for the beauty of a strong singular
voice.
-Piri Thomas, author of
Down These Mean Streets
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"I
met a fella named Luis Rodriguez, a writer and a poet,
who had a cultural center in Los Angeles. These are
people I've known and worked with for a long time. These
are the people trying to fill the holes that should
long ago have been filled by government. Those are the
people who give me optimism. They're relentlessly hopeful,
and they face it all on the front lines on a daily basis."
-
Bruce Springsteen from Rolling Stone magazine, November
15, 2007.
Tia
Chucha Press, founded by Luis J. Rodriguez in Chicago
almost 20 years ago, created two new books in 2007:
Linda Susan Jackson's "What Yellow Sounds Like" and
Richard Vargas' "American Jesus: Poems." In April of
2008, we'll produce the work of Susan Anderson "Nostalgia
for a Trumpet: Poems of Memory & History." Since 2005,
Tia Chucha Press has been the publishing wing of Tia
Chucha's Centro Cultural in the San Fernando Valley
section of Los Angeles. Our authors include Elizabeth
Alexander, Kyoki Mori, Tony Fitzpatrick, ariel robello,
Patricia Spears Jones, Diane Glancy, Nick Carbo, Melvin
Dixon, Ricardo Sanchez, Patricia Smith, and many more
-- Chicano, Puerto Rican, African American, Japanese
American, Filipino American, Native American, Irish
American, Italian American... you name it. Our anthologies
begin with youth, Guild Complex poets, and our latest
"Dream of a Word: The Tia Chucha Press Poetry Anthology,"
edited by Quraysh Ali Lansana and Toni Asante Lightfoot,
which includes a study guide for teachers and students
of poetry. For ordering information contact Northwestern
University Press at nupress@northwestern.edu
or call 1-800-621-2736.
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C
and C Press is a Pajaro, CA based printer that does
hand-made art books, the way books should be done--with
a lot of love, craft and collaboration. The artists
behind this are Sher Zabaszkiewicz and Matt Cohen. Over
the past few years they've done four poetry books of
mine ("Seven," "Two Women," Dos Mujeres," and "Making
Medicine"), amazingly designed and hand stitched, as
well as several broadsides. These are sold at limited-edition
& numbered collector's prices. Sher and Matt also work
on other projects that are truly wonderful to behold.
To get more information about how to obtain my art books
and other hand-made print work please go to www.candcpress.com.
Last
year Luis Rodriguez was interviewed by Maria Hinojosa
for WGBH in Boston as part of the show One on One.
It aired in the Boston area in July - and it's slated
to air nationally in early 2008. Here
is a video link to the interview.
Writer and activist Lisa Alvarado interviewed Luis J.
Rodriguez, with the interview appearing last year on
the following blog sites: labloga.blogspot.com
and blogcritics.org.
_____________________
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In
1997, John Valadez directed a documentary film for Moira
Productions called "Making Peace: Youth Struggling
for Survival, Like Father, Like Son" that aired
nationally on PBS-TV. This film is available
on VHS and DVD from Films for the Humanities and Sciences.
It deals with the work Luis Rodriguez did for many years
in mentoring, guiding, and assisting active Chicago
gang members and other youth into more positive, imaginative,
and healed lives. The film also centers on Luis' rocky
relationship with his oldest son, Ramiro Rodriguez,
who joined a Chicago gang when he was 15. This situation
served as a catalyst for Luis writing his best-selling
memoir "Always Running, La Vida Loca, Gang Days in LA"
(Touchstone Books/Simon & Schuster). When the film aired,
it was also shown in 200 community meetings around the
country as part of a "Making Peace" campaign.
Luis's
poem "Mother by the Lake " was featured in the new poetry
CD called "Bread & Steel: Illinois Poets Reading from
their Works." Edited by Illinois Poet Laureate Kevin
Stein, this CD features the work of 24 contemporary
Illinois poets. Luis spent 15 years in Chicago and was
extremely active in the poetry scene there. Order from
www.bradley.edu/poet/breadandsteel
Luis's poem "The Concrete River" was also in the amazing
CD collection "Poetry on Record: 98 Poets Read Their
Work, 188-2006," compiled and produced by Rebekah Presson
Mosby (Shout Factory). You can find out more at www.shoutfactory.com.
And
Luis poem, "My Name's Not Rodriguez," was also in the
CD and book called "The Face of Poetry," edited by Zack
Rogow with photos by Margaretta K. Mitchell and foreword
by Robert Hass (University of California Press). You
can check out this wonderful compilation with many important
US poets at www.ucpress.edu.
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View
a streaming
video of the 4th year anniversary celebration for
Tia Chucha's Cafe Cultural. Click
here to listen to music and poetry by Luis J. Rodriguez
on iTunes.
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