"While it's still true that all publishing houses, large and small, continue to underrepresent the voices of Latinas, at least at Calaca, there's always some amount of risk-taking -- including with Chicana poets. Academicians looking for easy explanations or formulae to describe "the" Chicana experience are bound to get their panties in a bunch over the poetic stylings of Sánchez and Echeverría. And that's fine by us. Just as in our cocinas y cafés, our classrooms and conference halls, these are the voices of Chicanas reverberating for real, unfettered by excuses. Sánchez, a writer, teacher, and activist in Oakland (okay: Oaktown, for you homies) brings the suave blend of modalities we love to see from the Bay Area. Meanwhile, Echeverría holds forth with that particular brand of East Los in-your-face poetics that keep it real. Is this "new feminism"? Maybe. But, for one gleaming moment, put your isms aside, and cozy up with the 31 tracks of spoken word in this collection. You need it." - Dr. Canela Jaramillo, STANDARDS
Elba Rosario Sánchez was born in Guadalajara, México and grew up in San Francisco's Mission District. She is a writer, teacher and cultural activist who lives and works in Oakland, California. Her book, Tallos de Luna/Moon Shoots was published by Moving Parts Press in 1992; her work was included in the anthology New Chicana/Chicano Writing, published by the University of Arizona Press; she was the founding co-editor of Revista Mujeres, a bilingual publication for and by Chicanas and Latinas; she participated in volume 1 of the Raza Spoken Here series and is featured in La Calaca Review. Her CD, book, chapbooks, and other publications, have been collections of bilingual poetry and she is now venturing into her bag of pocha stories.
Olga Angelina Garcia Echeverría is a Chicana poet who was born and raised in East Los Angeles, California. Ms. Garcia is a self-professed "battered bilingual" who code-switches, disrespects the English language, and uses poetry to portray a politicized identity. She received her BA in Ethnic Studies at the University of California at Santa Cruz and her MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Texas at El Paso. Her work appears in the Calaca titles Raza Spoken Here 1 and La Calaca Review. In the summer of 1999 she edited and published Sol y Sombra, a collection of bilingual poems by inner-city Latino youth. Calaca Press will publish her first collection of short stories, Con el nopal en la frente and Other Urban Tales from the Barrio.