!Join us tonight to celebrate the release of “Orange” Noel Quinones new book of poetry!
Noel will be joined by Bay Area poets who supported Noel throughout their poetry journey! Leticia Hernández-Linares, Josiah Luis Alderete, Reggie Edmonds-Vazquez, and Esperanza Cabrales. Hosted by Tino VH Jr. with an opening piece by San Francisco Youth Poet Laureate Karan Gupta, Noel's former student!
A bold and tender portrait of family, identity, and truth in the North Bronx.
Through narrative poems and innovative forms inspired by color theory and elementary school, Orange explores the ripple effects of queerness, lies, and finding yourself in a family. In this visceral new collection, however, the scope of "family" expands well beyond the nuclear unit; Noel Quiñones's poems center relationships between friends, cousins, partners, and many other family members. Painting a vivid and fraught portrait of the North Bronx, Quiñones unflinchingly confronts the contradictions at the heart of love, divorce, gender, religion, and community, unpacking the complexities of coming out, divorced parents, and generational trauma. Orange ultimately argues that truth resembles color: something real, yet elusive, and impossible to prove. Preorder Orange here or get a copy at the event.
Noel Quiñones is an Emmy award-winning writer of all genres. Noel is the author of the interactive poetry collection Orange (CavanKerry Press, May 2026) and has been published in Poetry, Boston Review, Poem-a-day, and The BreakBeat Poets Vol. 4: LatiNEXT anthology, as well as the Michigan Quarterly Review, for which they won the 2025 Jesmyn Ward Fiction Prize. Noel’s short story "This Time and the Next" will be included in The Best Short Stories 2026: The O. Henry Prize Winners. Noel has also written for, narrated, and acted in several films, including the Emmy nominated documentary Takeover, recounting the Young Lords’ 1970 takeover of Lincoln Hospital in the Bronx to fight for better healthcare. A graduate of the University of Mississippi's MFA program and founder of Project X, a Bronx-based spoken word poetry organization, Noel is currently a Justice for My Sister BIPOC Sci-Fi Screenwriting Lab Fellow working on their first TV show, The Telescope. Follow Noel at www.noelpquinones.com.
Tino V. H. Jr. is a Mexican-American teaching artist and spoken word poet born and raised in Oakland, CA. He attended UC Santa Cruz, pursuing a degree in Literature with a concentration in Latin American Literature. He has represented poetry teams for cities like Santa Cruz and Berkeley, CA, on national stages. Most recently, he traveled to the Bigfoot Poetry Festival with the 2023 Berkeley Slam team, where they took 3rd place. His work explores im/migration, indigeneity, the hood, queerness, feminism, and decolonial frameworks. He currently organizes with RichOak Events in the Bay Area co-curating 4 shows: Alchemy Open Mic, Day Dreamer’s Poetry, the Oakland Poetry Slam and the Berkeley Poetry Slam. He is also Editor in Chief of the Poet’s Bookshelf, on Substack, and at Nomadic Bookshop as a monthly literary series In his spare time he constantly updates his “Best Tacos in East Oakland” list, plays too many video games, reads to feel alive and writes pre-colonial high fantasy.
Leticia Hernández-Linares is an award-winning bilingual, interdisciplinary writer, artist, and racial justice educator. Widely published, she is the author of Mucha Muchacha, Too Much Girl, Alejandria Fights Back! ¡La lucha de Alejandria! and co-editor of The Wandering Song: Central American Writing in the United States. She has lived, created, taught, & protested in the Mission (unceded Ramaytush Ohlone land) for thirty years, and she teaches in the Department of Latina/Latino Studies at San Francisco State University.
Josiah Luis Alderete is a full blooded Spanglish speaking Pocho y left handed callejero de Aztlán who has been a part of the Bay Area's spoken word/literary scene for over twenty years. He is the curator and host of the long running monthly Latine reading series Speaking Axolotl and is the author of the poetry book “Baby Axolotls & Old Pochos(Black Freighter Press 2021) and the chapbooks “Fuchi Faces de los Estados Jodidos”(For The Pueblo Press,2023) and 'cuernitos de humo y other fragmentos"(Workers Quarter Printshop 2026). In 2023 he was the Poetry Center’s Mazza Writer in Residence at San Francisco State. In 2024 his work was translated in Spanish by the Universidad Autónoma De Nuevo León, as part of Hablando en Lenguas ,a literay project that paired Mexican and Xicanx poets. Along with his bookstore sister Tân Khanh Cao, Josiah tends the portal known as Medicina Para Pesadillas Bookstore y Galeria on 24th Street in San Pancho, Califas.
Reggie Edmonds-Vasquez (They/Them) is a poet, educator, and cultural curator from Richmond, CA. Their work, which examines the intersection of Black, Queer, and Gender diverse identities, has been selected for fellowships and awards from Nomadic Press, the Afro Urban Society, The Museum of the African Diaspora and others. Their poem, Aerodynamics of the American Negro, was a finalist for the 2022 Red Wheel Barrow Poetry Prize. A two time Berkeley Grand Champion and a nationally ranked poet, Reggie can currently be found as the Program Director of Rich Oak Events. Reggie’s debut chapbook, Ecology of the Hood (Foglifter Press) will be available in Summer 2026.
Esperanza Cabrales (they/them) is a queer, trans nonbinary Xicanx spoken word artist currently based in unceded Muwekma Ohlone lands, concurrently referred to as Oakland, CA. They're an organizer for the Berkeley Poetry Slam, workshop facilitator, certified Gemini summer baby, events organizer, polyglot, jewelry designer, and multi-media artist. Esperanza had the honor of being in the Queer Cultural Center's Creating Queer Communities 2024 L1 cohort, with a 15-minute poetry feature at the 2024 Fall National Queer Arts Festival. Their poem, ‘A Non-Controversial Poem’, was published in the 2025 edition of La Raiz Magazine. They've curated the following zines: “Lessons From My Cousin’s Garden” and “A Ghazal for Gaza/Where Does It Hurt?”, the latter of which was created in collaboration with Artists Against Apartheid and features collaged art from the Palestinian youth art exhibit "A Child's View from Gaza". They can be found on Instagram as @nepantlainoakland and on substack as @dreamingeyeswideopen.
Karan Gupta is a San Francisco-born poet and currently serves as the inaugural Youth Poet Laureate of San Francisco. He's been writing poetry since he was a kid and finds that it's the most potent form of writing. He explores the themes of racism, grief, and gentrification in his poetry.