Event Title: Macondo and Gemini Ink: A Celebration of the Alebrijes of San Antonio
Description: With a spotlight on the Macondo Writers Workshop, founded by Sandra Cisneros, Gemini Ink presents a literary history that is uniquely San Antonio. This reading features groundbreaking multicultural, Latinx voices who have made significant contributions to contemporary letters. “Multi-instrumentalists” at heart, these Macondistas have produced genre-bending works and, like the alebrijes of Mexican folk art tradition, walk between worlds of arts, activism, and academia to promote compassion.
Participants: Gregg Barrios, Norma E. Cantú, John Phillip Santos, Luis J. Rodriguez, Liliana Valenzuela
Location: Hemisfair Ballroom C3, Henry B. González Convention Center, Ballroom Level
Date & Time: Saturday, March 7, 3:20 p.m. to 4:35 p.m.

Q: What are some of the conference events or Bookfair exhibitors you look forward to seeing at AWP? 
The Featured Events of the Macondo Writers Workshop and CantoMundo, as well as Gemini Ink, three organizations that have been tremendously helpful to writers and poets.

Q: What do you remember most about your first AWP? What advice would you give to an AWP first-timer?
It’s ginormous! Focus on a few authors and panels and go from there.

Q: What is your favorite AWP conference memory?
Seeing old friends and making new ones. Seeing and hearing heroes and sheroes!

Q: What book or books that you’ve read over the last year would you most highly recommend?
American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America by Colin Woodard and Siempre un destierro by Gabriela Couturier. 

Q: If you’ve been to San Antonio before, what places do you recommend that our attendees should visit?
Sandra Cisneros’s former home in the King William District. The Pearl District. Jump-Start Theater. Burnt Nopal Creative Studio. The Liberty Bar. The Missions. 

Liliana Valenzuela is the acclaimed Spanish language translator of works by Sandra Cisneros, Julia Alvarez, Denise Chávez, and many other writers. As a poet, she is the author of Codex of Love: Bendita Ternura and Codex of Journeys: Bendito Camino. An essayist, journalist, and editor, her poetry has appeared in Edinburgh Review, Indiana Review, Tigertail, Huizache, Borderlands, Drunken Boat, and other publications. She is an inaugural fellow of CantoMundo and a long-time Macondo member.