Please join us on December 6 for our annual Holiday gathering. Featured speaker Karen Cordova will present:
“Cuentos
are Conejos ¡Dios Mio! They are everywhere.”
Translation “Stories are Rabbits! My
God! They are everywhere.”
Karen was born in Colorado and has deep roots in Southern
Colorado and Northern New Mexico. Much of her writing reflects a love of her
heritage by weaving stories about la gente of the Southwest.
She has participated
in formal spoken-word performances and is proud to have been included in
the 2010 Festival de Flor y Canto at USC, as well as in many ekphrasis
events. Karen curated her first show, Ekphrasis: Sacred Stories of the
Southwest in 2014 at a gallery in Phoenix, AZ. She
has received praise for her lively, fun, engaging and poignant poems before
many audiences. Her work has been published in various journals. Her first
book, Farolito, has been accepted for publication in 2015 by 3: A Taos
Press. It is a true story, which casts a Hispano light on the dark subject of
elder abuse and neglect but also illuminates a jagged path to solution and
unexpected healing. Her second book, Hidden, which is being written with
three other poets, Andrea L. Watson, Joan Ryan and Carol Aronoff, is expected
to be published in 2016. Hidden is a book of poetry about the Conversos
and crypto-Jews of Spain, who found their way to the New World.
Karen's
will explain how she uses genealogy, family stories, heirlooms, and
study of her cultural heritage to inform her poetry. She will intersperse
a few poems throughout the talk, as examples of how she does this. Audience
members with a poetic bent might even be inspired to do the same.
This will be an interactive talk, so your questions will be welcomed!
Karen
Cordova is
a writer and business woman who lives in Southern California. She is a graduate
of the University of California at Irvine (BA and MBA). Her ancestors were
Native American, Spanish and even Mountain men who wandered west. She is also a
member of GSHA-SC.
