Books
PRICKLY PEAR PUBLISHING & NOPALLI PRESS
OUTSTANDING BOOKS FOR READERS OF ALL AGES
SEGMENTED BODIES BY AIDEED MEDINA
TALISMAN
a novel of amnesia
By Jolaoso Prettythunder
MY MARCH WITH CÉSAR
By Marco E. López-Quezada
EL DÍA MÁS DELICIOSO DE MI VIDA ~ UNA MEZCLA DE POETRY + PROSE
By Arturo Mantecón
THE RIVER RUNS STORIES
By Thomas Ray Garcia
FURRY BEST FRIEND
By Anyssa Galván Bilka
HUMAN CICADA By Carlos Cumpián
LOOSE LIPS
By Briana Muñoz
PARTICULAR ODYSSEY: IN SEARCH
By Meg Withers
JAZzHOUSE
By Edward Vidaurre
Making an American Family A Recipe in Five Generations
By Janet Rodriguez
DEL CACTUS
By Paul Aponte
CRY, HOWL
By Edward Vidaurre
ERENÉ WITH WOLF MEDICINE BY IRENE BLEA
THE COLOR OF LIGHT
By Odilia Galván Rodríguez
Purchase the book at FlowerSong Press
Coming Soon!
FOOD TO GROW ON ~
Planting Seeds for Life
By Sarah Kolker
We are excitedly awaiting this new cookbook by Sarah Kolker, which is much more than a cookbook and more like recipes and maybe even maps for a way of living a healthy life. Whether you are a vegetarian, vegan, or someone who likes to eat good, tasty, and healthy food - this book is for you. Check back soon! ☆☆☆♡☆♡☆♡☆☆☆
Features
Poetry
〰️
Poetry 〰️
SEGMENTED BODIES
BY Aideed Medina
SEGMENTED BODIES is Medina's first complete poetry collection. It's a kaleidoscopic journey into the author's soul and worldview, a living and breathing compilation of her most important work. In these pages, the author invites us to experience the importance of a deep connection to the ancestors, the land, and its people. Rays of justice towards the creation shine in her words.
Aideed Medina is a Pushcart Prize-nominated poet, award-winning spoken word artist, and playwright. She is also a California Naturalist and practices flor y canto as part of her poetic process and exploration of California's natural history. Her work has appeared in several anthologies and literary journals, and she is the author of 31 Hummingbird by Editorial Xingao.
Copies of SEGMENTED BODIES can be purchased here.
TALISMAN a novel of amnesia
By Jolaoso Prettythunder
Talisman A Novel of Amnesia is Jolaoso Prettythunder's first complete poetry collection. Her poems are authentic, bold, brave, and unabashed. At the same time, these stories, rooted in nature, take us to shadowy and otherworldly places. Her work has appeared in several anthologies and literary arts journals. Prettythunder lives in the deep woods of Northern California on the native land and home of the Kashaya Pomo with her family and two dogs, Rosie Farstar and Ilumina Holy Dog. She is a farmer, freedom grower, practitioner, and student of herbal medicine and the founder of The Cloud Women's Dream Society, as well as a contributor and publisher of the Cloud Women's Quarterly Journal. She’s a well-traveled poet who loves rock, porch swings, pickup trucks, cooking, campfires, lightning, steak, long drives, hot cups of coffee, gathering and making medicine, and singing with friends and family. She is a practitioner of Indigenous Spiritual and healing traditions.
Purchase your copy of TALISMAN a novel of amnesia here.
Del Cactus By Paul Aponte
A grand collection of the author's selected works to date accompanied by his photographs and AI art. Paul Aponte is a Chicano Poet from Sacramento. He is a member of the writer's group Escritores del Nuevo Sol (Writers Of The New Sun) and a board member of Círculo De Poetas & Writers. He has been published in the Tecolote Press Anthology Poetry In Flight, Sacramento Poetry Center's quarterly Poetry Now, Un Canto De Amor A Gabriel Garcia Márquez (a publication from the country of Chile containing poems from around the world with 31 countries represented), in the Anthology Soñadores - We Came To Dream, in Voices 2022, and in the Los Angeles Review Volume 20 - Fall 2016. He was also the editor's choice in the online journal Convergence.
Get Paul Aponte’s book here.
Human Cicada By Carlos Cumpián
Carlos Cumpián’s poetry is movimiento, Nahui Ollin. It’s yollotl, heart. It’s the tempo and tension of igniting words, breathing magic into the living roots and branches of Chicago & Chicano poetry. — Luis J. Rodriguez, author of Borrowed Bones and Our Land to Our Land.
Get your copy of Human Cicada now!
In praise of ~ EL DÍA MÁS DELICIOSO DE MI VIDA
UNA MEZCLA DE POETRY + PROSE
Mantecón creates a Möbius strip of fleeting perceptions and voices,
Imagistic hybrids of word, voice, figures, and moments. The sacred,
the dead, the real and the Supra-real, that which is below and that
Which is above — all this comes in vertical and curved texts, in layers
And notes as we follow the “Circo de Fantasmas.” A most unique and
rare Book, a drama of perceptions. I applaud Mantecón’s voyages of consciousness
In a time of blurred realities. ¡Viva!
--Juan Felipe Herrera
Poet Laureate of the United States, Emeritus
Get EL DÍA MÁS DELICIOSO DE MI VIDA on sale now.
Cry, Howl, Poems By Edward Vidaurre is available now on Prickly Pear Publishing. Order your copy today!
Cry, Howl, the latest poetry collection by Edward Vidaurre, is sharply focused and insightful into today's reality. It penetrates the disturbing state of things in this "new normal" way of life that seems to besiege us all. But the poet arms himself and us with powerful images that shore up that drowning city that can inhabit us. The hope in his poems center around family, and the emotional relativity of loved ones becomes the saving grace that can rescue us from our precipice. There is weaving and interweaving of infinite axioms in this poetry of Vidaurre, which is portentous, poetry that remains engraved in the deepest part of our being.
PARTICULAR ODYSSEY: IN SEARCH BY MEG WITHERS AVAILABLE NOW ON PRICKLY PEAR PUBLISHING.
Poetry makes connections between ideas, any living being (and some non-living), concepts, universes, languages. It’s a great big neighborhood, which is not to say that all is well here. Poetry is one of the greatest forms of reconciliation and has as much conductivity as the most sophisticated electronic instrument. Most artists feel like this about their medium. Take the word medium for instance, which is a whole other universe.
It’s a Hokey Pokey world no doubt about it. We come here, then leave, and maybe come here again, or not. It’s actually none of our business what happens, as long as we make the kinds of connections that attempt to perform reconciliation and conductivity. The left hand in, then the left hand out. We’re turned about in ways we could never imagine – as long as we don’t interfere with universal rules. And, the rulebook is huge and lovely, magical with curves and immense trajectorial possibilities.
Mostly, we are faced with another circuitous hallway with countless unopened doors. This is the real magic of language, where all the voices belong. This book is a vision of a particular odyssey toward connectedness.
LOOSE LIPS
By Briana Muñoz
Briana Muñoz’s Loose Lips — her “poetry written without shame,” is edgy and raw. She gives us an unflinching view into the complicated nature of love and affairs of the heart, which are not always one in the same. This tell it like it is first collection of her work is not to be missed. Indulge and enjoy!
Get your copy of these wonderful poems here.
JAZzHOUSE
By Edward Vidaurre
These poems are compelling love songs to the intensity of everyday life; from the magic in the routine to the marvels and miraculousness of living. Edward Vidaurre takes us with him on his life trip, from East LA to the Rio Grande Valley and the all the far-reaching roots that accompany him in the form of ancestors, spirits, family, and other familiars. JAZzHOUSE is a base camp and a life. We are invited in to share some food, some cafecito, or a glass of wine - to sit awhile and be grateful for every minute we are alive.
Add JAZzHOUSE to your book collection now.
Fiction
〰️
Fiction 〰️
THE RIVER RUNS
STORIES
BY
THOMAS RAY GARCIA
Thomas Ray Garcia's debut short story collection presents revitalized insights into Texas-Mexico border culture, highlighting tales of resilience while refusing to shy away from the omnipresent reality the river imposes. Written from 2015 to 2020, these stories resist a singular vision of the border, centering the Rio Grande as a site of transformation.
Here, river crossings lead to cross-country runs and astral projections. A pregnant teenager learns about motherhood from a curandera. A scholarship boy grapples with his fronterizo identity. The sister of a border patrol agent lives in fear of deportation. A child looks into the eye of a drone and sees his family anew.
The River Runs: Stories won the Américo Paredes Literary Arts Prize for Fiction sponsored by FlowerSong Press from McAllen, Texas, and Prickly Pear Publishing from Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Get your copy of The River Runs here.
Memoir
〰️
Memoir 〰️
ERENÉ WITH WOLF MEDICINE
There are many surprises in this book. In Erené WithWolf Medicine Irene I. Blea skillfully introduces us to her Native American, Chicano, and dominant cultural experiences. She carries us with her when she moves from a mountain to rural farm life, to an industrial city, and produces an intense memoir about growing up in an extended family during an era when women were expected to fit into prescribed ways of being and seeing the world. This is also a story about the complexities of being tri-cultural in a dominant society that does not frequently validate a young girl with wolf medicine. Nevertheless, Blea grew into a woman when People of Color broke out of the old constrictive ways of being. She introduces us to the concept of genízaro and highlights how she used wolf medicine to navigate the intersection of race, class gender, and to define her own life while obtaining academic positions not normally held by those of her tri-cultural background. She did this in employment and as a Chicana poet, scholar, and feminist in the social justice movements of her era. Erené With Wolf Medicine demonstrates how difficult it was and still is for women to advance in the face of patriarchal and colonizer procedures, expectations, ways of thinking, and doing. One must rely on their inner power to overcome immense obstacles to redefine their own life.
You can buy it here: Erené With Wolf Medicine By Irene I. Blea.
MAKING AN AMERICAN FAMILY ~ A RECIPE IN FIVE GENERATIONS
BY JANET RODRIGUEZ
Making an American Family: A Recipe in Five Generations, the progressive story of one family is told through five generations, beginning with their journey into the United States during the Mexican Revolution, and culminating with their posterity, attending school online during the COVID19 pandemic. A family memoir, told through a chorus of voices, invites the reader into the multi-sensorial experience of memory and story.
At first glance, Rodriguez’s family memoir is a unique culinary journey, chronicling the growth and development of one family through five generations, from Mexico at the turn of the Twentieth Century to present-day United States. In narratives that begin with childhood, family members remember their formative experiences in chorus, highlighted by the foods that sustained, encouraged, and held their families together. Upon closer examination, the family memoir is a picture of erasure and homogenization through generations, as illustrated by the faded pictures in the cover. Rodriguez is faithful to showing how her immigrant family, like most families who came from Mexico in the early 20th century, were systematically stripped of their language, heritage, culture, and their given names, all for the price of “becoming American” in the USA. With passion and precision, Rodriguez serves the reader a family feast of memories, a microcosm of the American family.
On sale now, purchase it here: Making an American Family ~ A Recipe in Five Generations By Janet Rodriguez
My March With César By Marco E. López-Quezada — More Than Just A Memoir
Marco López-Quezada was punished for speaking Spanish in school and grew up amidst the racism endured by Southwest Mexicanos/Chicanos. Then he met Cesar Chavez in Delano during the farm labor and civil rights leader’s 25-day fast for nonviolence in 1968 and became immersed in “the eye of the storm”—Chavez’s epic farm workers’ struggle.
As an organizer during the 1970 Los Angeles grape boycott, Marco witnessed the signing of the United Farm Workers’ historic first contracts with Delano grape growers, was dispatched to Salinas in the lead up to that year’s massive lettuce and vegetable strike, and marched with the UFW—and got tear-gassed—in the landmark anti-Vietnam War Chicano Moratorium in East L.A.
As a law school intern in 1973, Marco saw first-hand the plight of embattled Central Valley melon and tomato strikers on the picket lines. He endured rural cops enforcing discriminatory court orders and was arrested and sprayed with pesticides.
Recruited as a UFW attorney by Dolores Huerta, Marco was drawn into the internal union political fight between a faction pushing for the UFW to become a narrow traditional business union and the Chavez-Huerta leadership embracing a more transformational vision of trade unionism. Initially, it was over whether union legal staff would receive salaries or subsistence pay like Chavez and all other UFW staff.
From that rift, Chavez asked Marco to lead the UFW legal department, moving it from Salinas to union headquarters at La Paz in Keene, Calif., and recruiting a whole new staff of volunteer lawyers, paralegals, and clerical personnel.
Marco also relates numerous personal insights from his time with Chavez, from physically blocking sheriff’s deputies trying to serve him during a UFW march to investigating an assassination plot.
Don’t miss out on this historical book you can purchase it here, My March With César By Marco E. López-Quezada. ¡Que Viva La Causa!
CHILDREN'S BOOKS
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CHILDREN'S BOOKS 〰️
FURRY BEST FRIEND
Furry Best Friend is Los Angeles artist and illustrator Anyssa Galván Bilka’s long-awaited debut children’s book. This touching story about a young girl who has a dog for a best friend will capture your heart. Her furry companion makes her feel truly happy, safe, and content. See what happens in their day-to-day life as they grow together. Don’t miss out on this heartwarming gem of a book! Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.
Buy Furry Best Friend for the children and pet lovers in your life.
ANNOUNCEMENTS
Join us for this book launch celebration of Aideed Medina’s new book segmented bodies.
MI MARCHA CON CÉSAR CHÁVEZ
BY MARCO E. LÓPEZ-QUEZADA
Mi Marcha Con César Chávez por Marco E. López-Quezada ya está disponible en español aquí en Prickly Pear Publishing o en Amazon. Las escuelas, librerías e instituciones pueden realizar pedidos al por mayor con un 30 % de descuento solo aqui en Prickly Pear Publishing. Contáctenos aquí para abrir una cuenta y obtener su descuento.
My March With César [Chávez] by Marco E. López-Quezada is now available in Spanish here on Prickly Pear Publishing or on Amazon. Schools, bookstores, and institutions can order in bulk at a 30% discount only through Prickly Pear Publishing. Contact us here on PPP to open an account and get your discount.
Compren lo aqui: Mi Marcha Con César Chávez Por Marco López-Quezada
CONGRATULATIONS TO THE WINNERS OF THE FIRST ANNUAL AMÉRICO PAREDES LITERARY ARTS PRIZE FOR POETRY & FICTION
GINA VALDÉS FOR POETRY AND THOMAS RAY GARCIA FOR FICTION.
Thank you to all the poets and writers who submitted their work for the prize. We also send out a big abrazo to our judges for all their hard work.
Gina and Thomas’ prize-winning books are forthcoming from PRICKLY PEAR PUBLISHING AND FLOWERSONG PRESS. Felicidades!
BOOK AWARDS
〰️
BOOK AWARDS 〰️
JAZzHOUSE by author Edward Vidaurre Wins Book Award
Glifo-Tattoos
.
México distilled
agave-blue moon
sky’s bellybutton
..
Glyphs fly like birds
oh beautiful colibrís
ecstasy of words
…
Too tired to sleep
the house, quiet as the street
ruido callado
….
her resigned eyes cry
her son dances for her life
moments indescribable
a universe
rushes on
balanced by eagle’s wing
blessings
🖤
copyright © Prickly Pear Publishing. All rights reserved.
“There's really no such thing as the 'voiceless'. There are only the deliberately silenced, or the preferably unheard.”
― Arundhati Roy,
Sydney Peace Prize Lecture
OUR STORY
Prickly Pear Publishing & Nopalli press was started back in 1998 by a couple of writers in the East Bay of the San Francisco Bay Area in response to the lack of publishing opportunities for People of Color (POC) and Women. With the exception of creating short run hand-bound, sewn, or stapled chapbooks — and with the help of local artists to do cover art and book design - the cost of printing full-length collections was still prohibitive.
The other almost insurmountable challenge was distribution. Our books had to be sold by word of mouth, at readings, performances, and workshops. With the advent of print on demand, the ability to sell and purchase books on-line, and through social media, increased possibilities of publishing more work by more writers of color, women, and youth.
Today, there are more opportunities for more and varied voices. The days and pressure of having to contend with the ever unfriendly and elitist gatekeepers who are not understanding of BIPOC writers’ work, or are not very interested in publishing it, at least for now, has lessened.
We continue to celebrate and support independent publishers, bookstores, and booksellers and understand the need to create more opportunities for communities of color, women, and youth to have their voices heard. ✿⊱╮
Odilia Galván Rodríguez
Publisher and Editor
Rolando Hernandez
Rodriguez Brown
Board Member
OUR MISSION and SUBMISSIONS
With the support of Red Earth Productions & Cultural Work, Prickly Pear Publishing and Nopalli Press collaboratively publish the creative work of people who do not traditionally have access to the mainstream publishing world. We aspire to collaborate with savvy guest editors regarding what makes for a good collection of poetry, short fiction, memoir, or hybrid text. Our goal is also to train folks interested in learning the craft of editing and other book arts.
FOR THE REMAINDER OF 2024, WE ARE ACCEPTING MANUSCRIPTS BY INVITATION ONLY. YOU ARE STILL WELCOME TO SUBMIT THEM, BUT THEY MAY NOT BE REVIEWED UNTIL THE 2025 PUBLISHING SCHEDULE BEGINS, WHICH IS IN THE LAST QUARTER OF 2024.
FOR MORE DETAILS, CLICK THE BUTTON BELOW.
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