Authors: Jaime Cortez and Norman Zelaya in conversation

Jaime Cortez, reading from Gordo and Norman Zelaya, reading from Gente, Folks, team up to bring an afternoon of laughter and camaraderie. Both will be in conversation with each other after the reading to talk about their experience as Latinx writers. 

Jaime Cortez is a writer and visual artist based in Watsonville, California and the San Francisco Bay Area. His fiction, essays and drawings have appeared in diverse publications that include Kindergarten: Experimental Writing For Children (Black Radish Press), No Straight Lines, a 40-year compendium of LGBT comics (Fantagraphics Press), Street Art San Francisco (Abrams Press) and Infinite Cities, an experimental atlas of San Francisco (UC Berkeley Press). He wrote and illustrated the graphic novel Sexile for AIDS Project Los Angeles in 2003.  His first short story collection, Gordo, was published to national acclaim in 2021 by Black Cat, an imprint of Grove Atlantic Press.  Cortez received his B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania, and his MFA in visual art from UC Berkeley.

Norman Antonio Zelaya was born and raised in San Francisco where draws his inspiration as a  Nicoya and SF native Mission District homeboy. He has published stories in ZYZZYVA, Apogee Journal, NY Tyrant, 14 Hills and Cipactli. He has also acted on stage and in films and performed in the squared circle as the masked luchador, Super Pulga. He is the author of two collections of short fiction, Orlando & Other Stories (Pochino Press, 2017) and Gente, Folks (Black Freighter Press, 2022). He lives in San Francisco and works as a Special Education teacher. Currently, he is completing a debut novel.

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Jaime Cortez - Facebook | Jaime Cortez - Website