Quiet Lightning presents the 13th Better Ancestors, featuring readings and performance by María Guerrero, Leticia Guzman, Carlos Quinteros III, James Cagney and London Pinkney, with special host Norman Antonio Zelaya!
Masks are recommended but will be optional. Questions? Concerns? Availability requests? Write evan@quietlightning.org.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
María Guerrero is a queer, Mexican, and Chicanx woman born in San Francisco and raised in Bayview Hunters Point. She currently works as an educator for middle school students and is a graduate student at the University of San Francisco in a MAT program called Urban Education and Social Justice. María uses storytelling to center community, intergenerational and collective traumas, resistance, collective healing, and reimagining possibilities for collective liberation in her work within and outside the margins of the paper.
Leticia Guzman is a chicana poet, educator and organizer from Hayward, California. Her work is featured in Between my body and the air poetry anthology by Youth Speaks, PODERISTAS media, a community built to celebrate Latina culture and is also featured in The Offing Literary Magazine. Leticia is a teaching artist at Youth Speaks, one of the world’s leading presenters of spoken word performance, education, and youth development programs. Leticia uses spoken word to empower her inner child and hopes to help uplift others.
Carlos Quinteros III is a poet with an occasional stutter, stumbling through language, living in San Francisco/the ancestral homeland of the Ramaytush Ohlone People. He is the managing editor and one of the poetry editors for The Ana, a literary magazine based in the Bay area.
Oakland born poet James Cagney is the author of two books of poetry, including Martian: The Saint of Loneliness, winner of 2021 James Laughlin Award from Academy of American Poets. Please Visit JamesCagneyPoet.com
London Pinkney London Pinkney is a writer and editor. She is the founder and editor-in-chief of The Ana. In 2021, she was awarded the Debra Plousha Moore Scholarship due to her service to the literary advancement of Black Americans, women, and their intersecting communities. In 2023, she was a Show US Your Spines resident with RADAR Productions and San Francisco Public Library’s Hormel Center. Her work can be read in numerous places, including Mirage #5 / Period[ical], OmniVerse, and the anthology Nonwhite and Woman (Woodhall Press). She is currently working on her debut book— an essay collection about Black Californians.
ABOUT THE HOST
Norman Antonio Zelaya is from San Francisco, CA. His writing is inspired by his Nicoya heritage and his lived experience as a SF native and Mission District homeboy. He’s the author of two collections of short fiction, Orlando & Other Stories (Pochino Press, 2017), and most recently, Gente, Folks (Black Freighter Press, 2022). His work has appeared in ZYZZYVA, Apogee Journal, NY Tyrant, 14 Hills, and Cipactli, among other journals. Mr. Zelaya has read and lectured throughout California, and across the country. Also, he’s appeared on stage, in film, and in the squared circle as the masked luchador, Super Pulga. He lives and works in San Francisco, where he’s completing a debut novel.