Author Luis J. Rodriguez – Named one of LA Weekly’s People of the Year 2012, will be in the Bay Area for Book/Film Tour and Healing event. Mr. Rodriguez will be presenting his book “It Calls You Back: An Odyssey through Love, Addiction, Revolutions, and Healing”. This will also be the Bay Area premiere film screening of “Rushing Waters, Rising Dreams: How the Arts are Transforming a Community.” Cine+Mas SF Latino Film Festival is the community co-presenter.
WHEN/WHERE:
Tuesday, July 10, 6-8pm – Cesar E. Chavez Branch Library, 3301 E 12th Street, Suite 271, Oakland, CA 94601. Books available for purchase.
Wednesday, July 11, 12-3pm – SF Public Library, 100 Larkin St (@Grove). Koret Auditorium, lower level, SF, CA 94102.
Thursday, July 12, 6-8:30pm – 826 Valencia, 826 Valencia St, San Francisco, CA 94110.
June 2012, San Francisco – Luis J. Rodriguez, will read from his latest book, his long-awaited sequel to his bestselling memoir Always Running, La Vida Loca, Gang Days in L.A. Now in paper back, and a National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist, It Calls You Back: An Odyssey Through Love, Addiction, Revolutions, and Healing details the intense struggles Luis has had as a writer, father, husband, revolutionary, and healer, including dealing with addictions, family abuse, and a son who did a total of fifteen years in prison.
“In this brilliantly jagged sequel to the gang-life classic, Always Running (1994), acclaimed journalist, poet and fiction writer Rodriguez… chronicles his struggle to leave behind a drug- and crime-ridden world that always threatened to ‘call him back.’ An acute political consciousness and powerful love of the written word ultimately saved the author from the lurking dangers of the street and the ‘nothing life’ to which most Latinos in East Los Angeles were automatically condemned… Raw, searing reading from start to finish.”–(Kirkus Review)
“Rushing Waters, Rising Dreams: How the Arts are Transforming a Community” is both a book and film. Economic restructuring during the 1970s decimated the once numerous local aerospace and manufacturing jobs in the San Fernando Valley leading to widespread unemployment and street gangs. Truly a wasteland, there were no bookstores or art galleries in Pacoima or Sylmar until Tia Chucha’s Centro Cultural and Bookstore opened in 2001. The multi-media community space quickly became a mecca for performances, workshops, a publishing imprint and a youth empowerment project.
“Rushing Waters, Rising Dreams: How the Arts are Transforming a Community” is a new book documenting the positive changes occurring in Pacoima and Sylmar because of the emerging community arts. Co-edited by Luis Rodriguez and Cal State Northridge Professor Denise Sandoval, it includes essays, poems, paintings and photos from over a dozen contributors on the vibrant arts community at Tia Chucha’s and at events like the annual literary festival “Celebrating Words.” It includes essays by teachers, leaders, youth activists, artists, poets, and others as well as photos, art images, poems, histories, interviews, and more. It is a 9 x 9 table top book, beautifully designed by Tia Chucha Press’s designer Jane Brunette.
Filmmaker John Cantu has also made a documentary film in tandem with the book. Cantu is an independent film maker, writer, and editor. The book will be available for sale and the film will have its Bay Area premier screening. The book is distributed by Northwestern University Press and the film will be distributed at a future date by Tia Chucha’s Centro Cultural.
For more info about Luis J. Rodriguez please visit: http://www.luisjrodriguez.com/index.htm
