If you write about family that's still living, do you still get to go to the family reunions? Can you really put pomegranate seeds in tacos and retain your Mexican license? Get the answer to these hard-hitting questions in this episode of Latinx Lit Audio Mag.

Roy Conboy is a Mixed Blood Latino/Irish/Indigenous writer and teacher who’s poetic plays have been seen in the struggling black boxes on the edges of the mainstream theatre in Los Angeles, Santa Ana, San Francisco, San Antonio, Denver, and more; and whose musical plays for young people have toured extensively in California.  His poetry has been seen in Green Hills Literary Lantern, Orphic Lute, Third Estate’s Quaranzine, Freshwater Literary Journal, New American Writing, and featured on Latinx Lit Magazine’s podcast.  His poetic radio drama Hue can be heard online at Barewire Theatre Company.  As an educator he taught for 35 years, including three decades as the head of the San Francisco State University playwrighting program where he created multiple programs that gave thousands of students of diverse ethnicities, genders, and backgrounds a place to find and raise their voices.

Check out his work at royconboy.net.

Roy's poem Tia Mary combines playfulness and poignancy in one beautiful punch.

Roy Conboy is a Mixed Blood Latino/Irish/Indigenous writer and teacher who’s poetic plays have been seen in the struggling black boxes on the edges of the mainstream theatre in Los Angeles, Santa Ana, San Francisco, San Antonio, Denver, and more; and whose musical plays for young people have toured extensively in California.  His poetry has been seen in Green Hills Literary Lantern, Orphic Lute, Third Estate’s Quaranzine, Freshwater Literary Journal, New American Writing, and featured on the Latinx Lit  podcast.  His poetic radio drama Hue can be heard online at Barewire Theatre Company.  As an educator he taught for 35 years, including three decades as the head of the San Francisco State University playwrighting program where he created multiple programs that gave thousands of students of diverse ethnicities, genders, and backgrounds a place to find and raise their voices.

You can catch his work at royconboy.net

Do the people who don't claim you have any right to decide who you are? Check out this behind the scenes with Kate Johnstun as he shares his family story and identity.

Kase Johnston is an award-winning novelist, essayist, and memoirist. He lives in Ogden, Utah, with his small family, and is on the board of Label Me Latina/o literary journal — just a writer who has been grappling with identity his whole life.

Author: 'Cast Away' (forthcoming from Torrey House Press, 2024). You can buy the new book now!⁠⁠ https://www.torreyhouse.org/let-the-wild-grasses-grow ⁠

'Let the Wild Grasses Grow' (Torrey House Press, 2021), Finalist High Plains Book Award, Fiction, 2022, Women’s National Book Association Great Group Read 2022

And 'Beyond the Grip of Craniosynostosis (McFarland & Co, 2015), Winner of the 2015 Gold Quill, League of Utah Writers

Co author/editor: Utah Reflections: Stories from the Wasatch Front (History Press, 2014) Host, The LITerally Podcast - ⁠http://www.thebanyancollective.com/literally/⁠

"By the time I was old enough to know, they only spoke in Spanish when they fought or when they swore. Then he would lift his hand and spin his finger around, directing me to dance while the first chords of La Cucaracha sang from his guitar. “La cucaracha y no puedo caminar.”

And he always sang the version that included “marijuana que fumar,” and he would get another side glance and laugh from grandma. Growing up, I thought this was the original and only version of the song. I had to look it up years later to learn that it has been around for decades but it’s not the version most grandfathers teach their grandchildren.

With this, for my grandpa Cordova, was par for the course on just about everything he taught us. If there was a dirty version of a song or a joke, that’s the one we heard."

Kase Johnston is an award-winning novelist, essayist, and memoirist. He lives in Ogden, Utah, with his small family, and is on the board of Label Me Latina/o literary journal — just a writer who has been grappling with identity his whole life.

Author: 'Cast Away' (forthcoming from Torrey House Press, 2024). You can buy the new book now!⁠ https://www.torreyhouse.org/let-the-wild-grasses-grow

'Let the Wild Grasses Grow' (Torrey House Press, 2021), Finalist High Plains Book Award, Fiction, 2022, Women’s National Book Association Great Group Read 2022

And 'Beyond the Grip of Craniosynostosis (McFarland & Co, 2015), Winner of the 2015 Gold Quill, League of Utah Writers

Co author/editor: Utah Reflections: Stories from the Wasatch Front (History Press, 2014)
Host, The LITerally Podcast - http://www.thebanyancollective.com/literally/

Can Alfredo Pasta really cure the blues? And is a national anthem just a cringey throwback to different times? Get the answers to these questions and more in this week's Behind the Scenes with Luna Vallejo.

Luna Vallejo is a 17-year-old writer who hails from Staten Island, New York with Mexican and Honduran roots. Luna is the founder and editor-in-chief of Neverland Lit, an international youth literary magazine that strives to amplify the voices of marginalized and emerging writers. When she’s not writing, you can find her listening to Lorde, stargazing, and re-reading Anthony Doerr novels.

"The Star-Spangled Banner

Is more than just a national anthem, it's the sanctified song millions of immigrants sing under their breath as their brittle backbones bend over strawberry fields slick with dew to convince themselves that America can still see their silhouettes even when their sandpaper skin isn't drenched in the dawn's early light..."

Luna Vallejo is a 17-year-old writer who hails from Staten Island, New York with Mexican and Honduran roots. Luna is the founder and editor-in-chief of Neverland Lit, an international youth literary magazine that strives to amplify the voices of marginalized and emerging writers. When she’s not writing, you can find her listening to Lorde, stargazing, and re-reading Anthony Doerr novels.

What is a Rodeo Queen, and does it come with a golden lasso like Wonder Woman gets? Tune in to get the answer to this hard-hitting question and more as we take a deep dive into the world of Breaking Pattern.

Buy Breaking Pattern from Inlandia Books and Barnes and Noble

BIO: Chicana Feminist and former Rodeo Queen, Tisha Marie Reichle-Aguilera (she/her) writes so the desert landscape of her childhood can be heard as loudly as the urban chaos of her adulthood. She is obsessed with food. A former high school teacher, she earned an MFA at Antioch University Los Angeles and a PhD in Creative Writing and Literature at the University of Southern California. Her fiction has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, Best Microfiction, and is spotlighted in Best Small Fictions 2022. Her short stories have been anthologized in Rural Writers of Color (EastOver Press 2023), Made in L.A. Volume 4 and 5 (Resonant Earth 2022 and 2023), Ramblings & Reflections: SouthWest Writers Winning Words Anthology, and Puro Chicanx Writers of the 21st Century. Her play Blind Thrust Fault was featured in Center Theater Group Writers’ Workshop Festival 2022 and her young adult novel Breaking Pattern is forthcoming from Inlandia Books. She is a Macondista and works for literary equity through Women Who Submit. You can read her other work at http://tishareichle.com/

Adriana Elizabeth Herrera Bowen loves horses more than people and lives for junior rodeo competitions. For the first time, the All-Around Cowgirl saddle is within her reach. Except her old gray mare, Pearl, isn’t as fast as she used to be, and another competitor has her eye on the same prize. So Adriana needs a faster horse. Is she willing to jeopardize her friendships and vet school dreams to win? Not if her parents have anything to say about it.

Buy Breaking Pattern from Inlandia Books and Barnes and Noble

BIO: Chicana Feminist and former Rodeo Queen, Tisha Marie Reichle-Aguilera (she/her) writes so the desert landscape of her childhood can be heard as loudly as the urban chaos of her adulthood. She is obsessed with food. A former high school teacher, she earned an MFA at Antioch University Los Angeles and a PhD in Creative Writing and Literature at the University of Southern California. Her fiction has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, Best Microfiction, and is spotlighted in Best Small Fictions 2022. Her short stories have been anthologized in Rural Writers of Color (EastOver Press 2023), Made in L.A. Volume 4 and 5 (Resonant Earth 2022 and 2023), Ramblings & Reflections: SouthWest Writers Winning Words Anthology, and Puro Chicanx Writers of the 21st Century. Her play Blind Thrust Fault was featured in Center Theater Group Writers’ Workshop Festival 2022 and her young adult novel Breaking Pattern is forthcoming from Inlandia Books. She is a Macondista and works for literary equity through Women Who Submit. You can read her other work at http://tishareichle.com/

In today's episode, Jessey Munoz shows us that you don't need a lot to have a happy childhood. And sometimes a pot of beans on the stove can be magical.

Jessey Munoz is a retired teacher.  He loves poetry, writing and his Mexican-American culture. He often writes about family experiences.  He lives in Texas with his wife, Patricia.   You can find Jessey's books 'Circle of Twelve: Mom Commanded the Wind, Dad the Land'; 'I Saw it All: Grandma's Account of the Big Bad Wolf Story', and 'Hidden Enemy— PTSD: A Puzzle Piece that Does Not Fit' on ⁠Amazon⁠.

Do you remember when you thought finding a quarter made you rich? In this poem, Jesse Munoz takes us back to a simpler time.

Jessey Munoz is a retired teacher.  He loves poetry, writing and his Mexican-American culture. He often writes about family experiences.  He lives in Texas with his wife, Patricia.  
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— PTSD: A Puzzle Piece that Does Not Fit' on Amazon.