La Quinta Soledad: A Reading and Book Launch Tardeada with Silviana Wood

3:00 PM, Saturday, 11 March 2023 (In-person Event)

Sponsored by Red Salmon Arts

Part fiction and part memoir, La Quinta Soledad is narrated by 62-year-old Quinta Soledad, a neighborhood typist and scribe from Barrio Anita in Tucson, Arizona. She tells a multigenerational Mexicana/Chicana family story of “oro molido” memories that center on her strict and unforgiving abuela, Nana Conchita; her single mother, Lola; and her four older blossom sisters: Dalia (Dolly), Magnolia (Maggie), Orquídea (Orky), and Azucena (Susie Mae).

La Quinta Soledad is a tour de force of Chicana literature, culture, cuisine, folklore and humor. Wood is a master storyteller and word-sorceress in love with the beauty, magic, and creative possibility of the Chicana language in all of its glorious multilingualism, and ability to navigate multiple realities. Denise Chávez, award-winning author of Loving Pedro Infante, calls La Quinta Soledad “…a Masterpiece!” and says: “Silviana Wood is La Mera Mera.” Demetria Martínez, author of Mother Tongue, adds that “Silviana Wood has delivered a wondrous tale, a celebration of culture, language and familia. This is a book to be savored, page by precious page.” And Russ López, Editor of LatineLit, says that La Quinta Soledad “… is one of the best debut novels of the past decade.”

About the author:

A native of Tucson, Arizona, Silviana Wood received her M.F.A. in Creative Writing from the University of Arizona and has been involved in the local theater community since the 1970s. She is known for her bilingual comedies and dramas as well as for being a professional storyteller, actor, director, and teacher of literature and Chicano Theater. Silviana has twice won the Chicano/Latino Literary Prize from the University of California, Irvine: once for Short Story, and once for Drama. In 2016, Barrio Dreams/ Selected Plays by Silviana Wood was published by the University of Arizona Press.

FMI: https://aztlanlibrepress.com/silviana-wood/

Red Salmon Arts is a 501(c)3 grassroots cultural arts organization, with a thirty-year history of working with the indigenous neighborhoods of Austin. RSA is dedicated to the development of emerging writers and the promotion of Chicanx/@/Latinx/@/Native American literature, providing outlets and mechanisms for cultural exchange, and sharing in the retrieval of a people’s cultural heritage with a commitment to social justice.

This project is supported in part by the Cultural Arts Division of the City of Austin Economic Development Department.