004 – Hanging with Helena María Viramontes
[Want to read the transcript of this episode?]
Helena María Viramontes talks about what matters in her writing.
We’re hanging with Helena María Viramontes.
Helena María Viramontes is the author of The Moths and Other Stories and two novels Under the Feet of Jesus and Their Dogs Came With Them. She has also co-edited with Maria Herrera Sobek, two collections: Chicana (W) rites: On Word and Film and Chicana Creativity and Criticism. A recipient of numerous awards and honors, including the John Dos Passos Award for Literature, and a United States Artist Fellowship, her short stories and essays have been widely anthologized and her writings have been adopted for classroom use and university study. Her work is the subject of a critical reader titled Rebozos De Palabras edited by Gabrielle Gutierrez y Muhs and published by the University of Arizona Press. A community organizer and former coordinator of the Los Angeles Latino Writers Association, she is a frequent reader and lecturer in the U.S. and internationally.
We’ll also get into assimilation, intergenerational trauma (with jokes!), what we’re reading, and some thoughts for the road!
A quick summary of what to expect…
- Intro/Welcome
- Helena María Viramontes’s Bio
- Episode Summary
- Invoking the Muse: The Excavation of Identity as a Political Act
- Conversation between Adriana & Karla on Viramontes
- Viramontes reads from Cemetery Boys at City of Asylum in November 2016.
- An excerpt from an interview between Adriana and Viramontes
- Karla and Adriana chat assimilation and visibility
- What Are We Reading?
- Remedios for the Road
- Goodbye and outro
EPISODE LINKS
- that tiktok
- Helena María Viramontes in conversation with Mary Gaitskill
- the work of Cherrie Moraga
- Kathryn Harrison’s The Kiss
- Rosa Alcalá
- Alcalá’s Vicuña translations on Aster(ix)
- William Goldman’s Adventures in the Screen Trade
- City of Asylum’s International Literary Festival
- Jessica Salgado’s Hermosa
- Michelle Serros Chicana Falsa
- Rosa Alcalá at City of Asylum on May 15th (with Adriana!)
HOW TO LISTEN
You can listen using the player above, download this episode directly, or subscribe on Google Podcasts, on Spotify, on Apple Podcasts, on your favorite podcast app, or via the RSS feed at https://anchor.fm/s/51c8d038/podcast/rss.
Many thanks to Luis Alfonso for the music in this episode. Photo credit to City of Asylum.
Thanks for listening!
