Grotto Nights is a monthly series at the Library featuring The Writers Grotto members who will showcase and discuss their writing around a theme of their choice. This month features Roberto Lovato and Beth Winegarner on the theme: giving voice to the dead.

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Roberto Lovato is the author of Unforgetting: A Memoir of Family, Migration, Gangs, and Revolution in the Americas, a groundbreaking memoir selected as an Editor’s Choice by The New York Times. His memoir was named a must-read book of 2020 by Newsweek and listed among the Los Angeles Times' 20 Best Books of 2020. Unforgetting was also a finalist for the 2022 William Saroyan International Prize for Writing. Lovato is an Assistant Professor of English at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and a journalist whose work has been featured in prominent media outlets, including The New York Times, the Boston Globe, Guernica, La Opinion, Der Spiegel and others. As a recipient of a reporting grant from the Pulitzer Center, Lovato has covered a range of critical issues across countries such as Mexico, Venezuela, El Salvador, Dominican Republic, Haiti, France and the United States.

Beth Winegarner is a journalist, author, essayist, and pop culture critic who’s contributed to the New York Times, the New Yorker, The Guardian, The Washington Post, Wired, Mother Jones, and many others. She is a former daily news reporter for the San Francisco Examiner and a former contributor to The San Francisco Chronicle. She is the author of several books, including Sacred Sonoma, Beloved, The Columbine Effect: How Five Teen Pastimes Got Caught in the Crossfire and Why Teens are Taking Them Back, and Tenacity: Heavy Metal in the Middle East and Africa. Her newest book is San Francisco’s Forgotten Cemeteries: A Buried History.

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Roberto Lovato - Website | Roberto Lovato - Twitter | Roberto Lovato - Instagram

Beth Winegarner - Website | Beth Winegarner - Instagram | Beth Winegarner - Twitter