Book cart during Luminaria 2009. Photo by: Corey Leopold. CC. Some Rights Reserved.

We’re seeking books of all genres to pass out at San Antonio’s celebration of arts and artists, Luminaria. At last year’s event, Gemini Ink gave away over 3,000 donated books as part of Libro Libre. Help us do this again by dropping off your new or gently used books at our office, located at 513 S. Presa. Or, if you prefer call ahead and we can send someone to pick up the books for you. For more information, call 210.734.9673.

Gemini Ink and the Macondo Foundation team up for a special First Friday reading with Macondo writer Rachel Jennings and Alfredo Cisneros Del Moral 2009 award recipient Emmy Peréz. Macondo Foundation founder Sandra Cisneros will introduce both writers during the reading.

Rachel Jennings earned a B.A. from the University of Tennessee at Knoxville and an M.A.and Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin. In 2002, she received the Rockefeller Foundation Scholar-in-Residence at the Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Gender in Appalachia at Marshall University in Huntington, West Virginia. She has published poems in several publications, including La Voz de Esperanza, Appalachian Journal, Struggle, Blue Collar Review, RE:AL, Concho River Review, Red River Review, Nantahala Review, and the San Antonio Express-News. She published a chapbook, Hedge Ghosts, at LaNana Creek Press in 2003. In 2008, she published a book of poetry, Elijah’s Farm, at Pecan Grove Press. Currently, she teaches composition and literature at San Antonio College.

Emmy Pérez is the author of a poetry collection, Solstice (Swan Scythe Press, 2003). She holds degrees from Columbia University and the University of Southern California. Her work has appeared in Prairie Schooner, North American Review, Notre Dame Review, New York Quarterly, Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review, Indiana Review, Crab Orchard Review, and the anthologies The Wind Shifts: New Latino Poetry and The Weight of Addition: an anthology of Texas Poetry. She is a contributing editor for The Writer’s Chronicle, Latino Poetry Review, and Texas Books in Review. Currently, she is an Assistant Professor and teaches in the MFA program at the University of Texas-Pan American in the Rio Grande Valley.

What: First Friday Reading
When: Friday, Feb. 5, 6:30pm-8:30pm
Where: Gemini Ink, 513 S. Presa

Dr. Norma Cantú will conduct the workshop Telling to Live: Writing Your Life Story on Saturday, Jan. 23, from 10 am – 1 pm. Dr. Cantú currently teaches at the University of Texas at San Antonio with teaching interests in Cultural Studies, Contemporary Literary Theory, Border Studies, Chicano/a and Latina/o Literature & Film, Folklore and Women’s Studies. Dr. Cantú has published articles on a number or academic subjects, as well as poetry and fiction. She has co-edited four books and edited a collection of testimonios by Chicana scientists, mathematicians and engineers. Her award winning Canícula: Snapshots of a Girlhood en la Frontera (University of New Mexico Press, 1997) chronicles her childhood experiences on the border.

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Carmen Tafolla reads from Angela De Hoyos works @ Gemini Ink from Gemini Ink on Vimeo.

Writer Carmen Tafolla reads “Cuento de Hadas/ Fairytale” from Angela De Hoyos “Woman, Woman” at December’s reading.