Raquel Gutiérrez, "Brown Neon" (Coffee House Press, 2022)

Writing Latinos, from Public Books, features interviews with Latino (a/x/e) authors discussing their books and how their writing contributes to the ever-changing conversation about the meanings of latinidad.

In this episode, Geraldo Cadava and Tasha Sandoval talk with Raquel Gutiérrez about their critically acclaimed book, Brown Neon: Essays, published by Coffee House Press in 2022. Brown Neon won the 2023 Publishing Triangle Judy Grahn Award for Lesbian Nonfiction, and was a finalist for the 2023 Lambda Literary Award in Lesbian Memoir/Biography and the 2023 Firecracker Award for Creative Nonfiction. It has received praise from the New Yorker, Vogue, Oprah Daily, SPIN, Ms. Magazine, and so many other publications.

Gutiérrez, Cadava, and Sandoval discuss the legendary activist Jeanne Córdova, Leslie Marmon Silko, gentrification, belonging, performance, border walls, the Sonoran Desert, the drive on I-10 through Arizona and California, and Tucson. Really, it was a lot about Tucson, and you can thank Sandoval for editing that part down to a reasonable length. On the other hand, if you’re from the desert, or just a fan of the “Dirty T,” as Gutiérrez called it, then you’re welcome!

A critic, essayist, poet, performer, and educator, Gutiérrez was born and raised in Los Angeles, and is today based in Tucson. They teach in the low-residency creative writing MFA programs at Oregon State University–Cascades and the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA).

Geraldo L. Cadava is a historian of the United States and Latin America. He focuses on Latinos in the United States and the U.S.-Mexico borderlands. He hosts the podcast "Writing Latinos."

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