An evening with celebrated writer Sandra Cisneros, author of the beloved classic The House on Mango Street and one of the most influential voices in Chicanx and American literature. Through a reading and conversation with Tomás Rivera Endowed Chair and Professor of Creative Writing, Alex Espinoza, Cisneros will share her work, her life, and her vision. Together, they will offer our campus and community an unforgettable celebration of story, heritage, and the transformative power of the written word.

Join the conversation -- submit your questions for Sandra using this form!
 
DATE
Wednesday, October 8
Doors open: 6:30 pm
Event starts: 7:00pm
 
LOCATION
University Theatre

FREE and open to the public

Seating is limited -- first come, first served.

Overflow seating will be provided in Life Sciences 1500. Live-streamed video will also be shown online, for those who cannot attend in person.

A book signing will follow the live presentation.

 
BIOGRAPHIES
Sandra Cisneros is a poet, short story writer, novelist, and essayist whose work explores the lives of the working-class. Her numerous awards include NEA fellowships in both poetry and fiction, the Texas Medal of the Arts, a MacArthur Fellowship, the PEN/Nabokov Award for International Literature, the National Medal of Arts, the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, the Ambassador Richard C. Holbrooke Distinguished Achievement Award from the Dayton Literary Peace Prize Foundation, and the Harold Washington Literary Award. Her novel The House on Mango Street has sold over seven million copies, has been translated into over twenty-five languages, and is required reading in elementary, high school, and universities across the nation. In 2024, The House on Mango Street was published in the Everyman’s Library Contemporary Classics Series in recognition of the 40th anniversary of its original publication. A new collection of poetry, Woman Without Shame, Cisneros’s first in 28 years, was published in 2022 by Knopf and also by Vintage Español in a Spanish language translation, Mujer sin vergüenza, by Liliana Valenzuela. Cisneros is at work on a new novel, Infinito, to be published by Knopf in 2027. Cisneros is a dual citizen of the United States and Mexico. As a single woman, she chose to have books instead of children. She earns her living by her pen

Alex Espinoza was born in Tijuana, Mexico to Purepécha parents from the state of Michoacán and raised in Southern California. His debut novel, Still Water Saints, was published to wide critical acclaim. His second novel, The Five Acts of Diego León, was the winner of a 2014 American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation. Other awards include fellowships from the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, the National Endowment for the Arts, and Macdowell. He is the author of the nonfiction book Cruising: An Intimate History of a Radical Pastime and has written essays, reviews, and stories for the New York Times Sunday Magazine, Virginia Quarterly Review, the Los Angeles Times, LitHub, and NPR. His short story “Detainment” was selected for inclusion in the 2022 Best American Mystery and Suspense Stories. Alex lives in Los Angeles with his husband Kyle and serves as the Tomás Rivera Endowed Chair and Professor of Creative Writing. His newest novel, The Sons of El Rey (Simon and Schuster, 2024) was hailed as a "knockout" by Publisher's Weekly and named a "Best Book of 2024" by the New Yorker.

SPONSORS

The Tomas Rivera Endowed Chair / Tomas Rivera Conference; Department of Creative Writing; Department of English; The Global Latinidades Initiative; Latino and Latin American Studies Research Center (LLASRC); Center for Ideas and Society

Photo by Keith Dannemiller