I'm spending the morning in high school. Everything is much smaller than I remember ... except me.
La Clase
My friend Jackie Madrigal pioneered a US Latino Literature class at Shawnee Mission North High School in Mission, Kansas. She invited Chato Villalobos and myself to be guest speakers to help put some faces to Latino literature and to talk about the Latino Writers Collective and our writing processes. Both Chato and I are honored to be asked. Her curriculum is thoughtful and hits all the major notes in the rather large genre.
As this day grew closer, my social anxiety started to wrap itself around me. In fact, last night I spent some time thinking about how I could get out of this gig. Chato could do the presentation himself. He's a police officer and therefore automatically much more interesting, right? Besides I have to work that afternoon and there's a chance I could be late. My tummy still kinda hurts from when I was sick last week. Also my car is pretty old and I don't like to drive it more than necessary ...
Thanks to everyone who donated to my Lambda Literary Foundation fund!
I needed to collect a whopping $1,300 and you guys exceeded that goal by $170!! The excess funds do not go to me but they will go to the Lambda Literary Foundation which does so much to support LGBT and Queer writers. Thank you for encouraging my efforts and strengthening them. Please follow me on Facebook and Twitter to keep track of my progress at the Writers Retreat for Emerging LGBT Voices! You can follow more of this year's LLF fellows by tracking the #LLFellows2013 hashtag
2012 LLF Fellows Kima Jones and Miguel M. Morales. photo by Kima Jones
How exciting to be a one of the few Lambda Literary Foundation Fellows who'll return to the LLF familia for the Writers Retreat for Emerging LGBT Voices at the American Jewish University campus in Los Angeles this summer! Unfortunately, returning fellows are not eligible for scholarships. That means your Miguel has to come up with $1,650 $1,300 for tuition/board as well as secure my own travel.YIKES!! Last year, I kept donors updated on my progress at the retreat using this blog (tagged: LLF) and by posting to Facebook and Twitter. This year I'll continue keeping supporters informed using the same backchannels. The retreat takes place July 28-Aug. 4 so I'm offering the following:
▼ Anyone making a donation (any amount) will receive an original poem, short story, or essay.
▼ Anyone donating $50 or more will receive an autographed limited-edition bound compilation of my work.
▼ Anyone donating $100 or more will receive the autographed limited-edition bound compilation, a CD of some of my readings and speeches, and some sort of tote bag (hey, it works for PBS!).
Making a tax-deductible donation, is easy and safe -- simply click the DonorPages graph in the upper right corner or at the end of this post. To inquire about supporting my travel expenses (not included as part of this Donor Page account), please contact me on Facebook or Twitter.Thanks!!
ABOUT MIGUEL
I live in Kansas but grew up in the Texas panhandle working as a migrant farmworker and child laborer. As a journalist, I earned the Society of Professional Journalists’ First Amendment Award. I currently serve on the board of The Latino Writers Collective board. I am also a founding member of Fabulous Queer Writers of Kansas City! My work is featured in:
Primera Página: Poetry from the Latino Heartland
Cuentos del Centro: Stories from the Latino Heartland
From Macho to Mariposa: New Gay Latino Fiction
To the Stars Through Difficulties: A Kansas Renga in 150 Voices
Joto: An Anthology of Queer Xicano & Chicano Poetry (forthcoming)
ABOUT MIGUEL'S LLF PROJECT
I am working on an LGBT YA novel about a gay migrant farmworker and his family. In addition to being from this community, I help facilitate writers workshops for migrant youth. Trust me, these stories need to be told. This project takes inspiration from those students and from the works of Rigoberto González, Sandra Cisneros, and many others. A side project has developed from this effort -- a poetry manuscript detailing the life of migrant youth. I want to thank everyone for their support, not just on this project but for a lifetime of love and encouragement. gracias, miguel
Annameekee Hesik, author of "The You Know Who Girls: Freshman Year" reads a found poem compiled from her students' Facebook statuses for one day. The reading takes place at the Lambda Literary Foundation's 2012 Writers Retreat for Emerging LGBT Voices
Awaiting Scholastic Inc Publisher, Arthur A. Levine
The YA cohort finally finished its manuscript critiques! YAY for YA! We enthusiastically turned our attention to our long-awaited writing prompts.
A few days after Lambda notified the us we’d been
selected for the retreat, our mentor sent an email asking the YA group to do the
following:
üRead Anne Lamott's book, "Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life"
üBring a 15-25 page manuscript of an unpublished
work-in-progress for critique.
üBring hard copies of all the other participants’
manuscripts noting (a) strong points, what worked, what kept you
reading, etc., and (b) what you think could be improved/strengthened, what
would inspire you to read more, etc.
üBring a favorite poem about growing up.
Bring one photo of you
taken during your teen years.
Bring a CD with a song
that was important to you when you were a teenager.
Bring one pad of blank
Post-It Notes.
Bring a favorite scene (1
page) from either a young adult novel or a novel that inspired you when
you were a teen.
Every morning we stared the session with a poem or two. By day 6 we’d burned through all the poems. Today we brought our
teen photos. We all agreed my roommate Jef had the best photo. It was his prom photo and it was so horribly bad that it was good. It was out of focus,
bad poses, people halfway out of frame, I mean it was classic. It was the kind
of bad photo you’d proudly put on the inside of your locker door and know it was totally rad.
In preparing my list of items to bring to the retreat, I forgot about the photo. On the
plane, I looked over the list from Alex and remembered I hadn’t selected a
photo. When my friend picked me up, we went to his house and I logged onto Facebook to print a photo (any photo) of young Miguel.
My photo, like Jef's, was of my
senior prom. I sat at the banquet table (it was a dinner-dance). The
guys sat on one side of the table and their dates sat across from them. On my side, all the guys wore white tuxedo shirts. Mine was pink. Across from me, my date was the
only one wearing a bow tie and a white dinner jacket. Everyone else in his row had big '80s hair and prom dresses to match.There we sat, two guys at
prom, and no one said a word. We took our prom photo together like everyone else. Even then,
25 years ago, it was strange how natural it felt for us to go to prom together.
I don’t remember anyone making a big deal out of it. If they did, I never heard about it.
Teen years can be difficult so I was happy most of the
group shared their picture and their stories. Some didn’t and I respect that because looking deeper at my picture, I could’ve written some dark stuff. It wasn’t all
rainbows and glitter for young Miguel.
LLF Fellows reading (L-R) Miguel M. Morales, Rachel L. Pepper, AJ Reyes, Nina Packebush, Christina Clover, Bridget Birdsall. Photo courtesy of Rachel L. Pepper
For the past few days the YA group sat for three hours each
day for intense manuscript critiques and very little writing. The critique
sessions starting to get tiresome. Maybe it was just me. I got feedback on my
work earlier in the week. But everyone deserved to get proper feedback and for that
feedback to be as fresh as it was on the first day. That’s what I tried to
offer. I also took notes on the other critique sessions. Some of it made sense for
my manuscript or for my writing in general.
After the usual round of feedback, we worked on a handout
from our faculty mentor. It felt good to do some writing and to focus on exercises
that allowed me to learn more about the characters I’ve created and the world
they inhabit.
After lunch part of the YA group had decided to visit the
Getty Museum which was just a few miles away. I really wanted to go but I
decided to stay and work on my revisions for the LLF fellows reading that
evening. The first part of the week, LLF faculty mentors read their work in a
stunning display. Well, it was our turn. This was the first of two days where
LLF fellows would read. A few of the YA fellows signed up for the first day
taking various spaces in the top 10 slots. I signed up with them just to get it over with and to have the comfort of reading in the company of
my cohort. We learned about the reading a few weeks before the retreat so I made
sure to bring some of my poems. I’d never read from my manuscript in public and
I wasn’t sure I wanted to.
At lunch, I sat at a table with the incredible Jewelle Gomez
and she asked me what I planned to read. I know. Let me stop there because
you’re probably like, “Wait, wait, wait. Jewelle Gomez talked to you and she asked
what you were going to read?”
