Recent Book Launches

Mongrel Empire Press recently hosted three successful book launches, one for James Murray’s short story collection entitled The Long Rifle Season and two for The Walmart Republic, a collaborative poetry collection by Quraysh Ali Lansana and Christopher Stewart.

Here is a video of the Chicago release of The Walmart Republic, hosted by the The Guild Literary Complex, co-presented by the Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts and Mongrel Empire Press, and sponsored by the Chicago Center for Working Class Studies.

The Long Rifle Season book launch was held in Tahlequah, Oklahoma and generously and graciously hosted by Isaac at Chapel Books. The author, James Murray, read from the collection; MEP editor Jeanetta Calhoun Mish and MEP author Quraysh Ali Lansana read a poem apiece. Special guests at the opening included novelist Rilla Askew, artist and writer Murv Jacob, writer and musician Debbie Duvall, bluesman Pat Moss, and writer-storyteller Sequoyah Guess. Photos below are from The Long Rifle Season book launch; MEP is grateful to Gay Pasley of Black Swan Images for the use of her photos.

Author James Murray and members of the audience.

Author James Murray reads from The Long Rifle Season.

Quraysh Ali Lansana reads a poem while author James Murray and MEP editor Jeanetta Calhoun Mish listen.

The second launch for The Walmart Republic was held at Oklahoma City University, where Lansana is on the faculty of The Red Earth MFA. Two current and one former Red Earth poetry students read from their work (David Bublitz, Josefine Green & Jill Hawkins). Lansana was introduced by poet Timothy Bradford; Bradford also read poems by Lansana’s co-author, Christopher Stewart, who was unable to attend because of flight cancellations. The following photos are from the OKC book launch for The Walmart Republic. Again, we thank Gay Pasley of Black Swan Images for the photos:

Red Earth MFA student Josefine Green

Quraysh Ali Lansana

Red Earth MFA student Jill Hawkins

Timothy Bradford, introducing The Walmart Republic and its authors.

David Bublitz, July 2014 graduate of The Red Earth MFA

MEP author Natalia Treviño has been so busy lately, we thought we’d let you know what all she’s been up to. Her 2014 MEP poetry collection, Lavando La Dirty Laundry has been winning awards and getting rave reviews. Here is a digest of what Natalia and her book have been doing–you should get to a comfortable chair–this will take a while:

AWARDS & OTHER RECOGNITION

Las Comadres Book Club Conversation, Sept 29th, 2014. You can register for the teleconference with Natalia here: http://lascomadres.com/latinolit/0914-teleconference/

Shortlisted for the 2014 International Rubery Book Award for Poetry http://www.ruberybookaward.com/2014-book-winners.html

UPCOMING READINGS/BOOK TOUR

Sept 13, Austin, Featured Reader and Workshop Leader at the Feminist Poetry Festival– time tbahttp://atxfeministpoetryfest.wordpress.com/poetperfomer-bios/

Sept 24, San Antonio, Reading, San Antonio College, 5:30 PM

Oct 2-5, a tour through the lush South Texas Valley:

Oct 2, Edinburg, Reading, UTPA, Noon

Oct 3, South Padre Island, Reading, Paragraphs on Padre Boulevard, 7 PM

Oct 4, Brownsville Book Festival, Reading, time tba

Oct 4, McAllen, Reading, Poetry, Pasta, y Vino 8 PM

Oct 11, Austin, Writing Workshop, Writing for Wholeness Through Compassion, Flor de Nopal Literary Festival, 1-3 PM

Nov 1, Austin, Reading, Flor de Nopal Literary Festival at Resistencia Bookstore– time tba

Nov 13, Austin, Reading, Bookwoman, time tba

Dec 5th, Austin, Flor de Nopal Reading

INTERVIEWS

Print Interviews

Letras Latinas with iren’e lara silva via Harriet at the Poetry Foundation http://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/2014/08/accepting-the-dirt-ireene-lara-silva-in-conversation-with-natalia-trevino/

La Bloga with Amelia Montes http://labloga.blogspot.com/2014/06/talking-about-lavando-la-dirty-laundry.html

Radio Interviews

Words on a Wire with Daniel Chacon and Benjamin Alire Saenz http://ktep.org/post/words-wire-natalia-trevino

Nuestra Palabra with Tony Diaz http://www.nuestrapalabra.org/NPHistory.html?entry=nuestra-palabra-and-tintero-unite

Television Interview

Poet’s Corner

REVIEWS

San Antonio Express News by Roberto Bonazzi http://www.mysanantonio.com/entertainment/arts-culture/books/article/S-A-poets-narratives-compelling-5411187.php

El Paso Times by Sheryl Luna http://www.elpasotimes.com/living/ci_26138304/cleansing

Voices de la Luna by Mo H. Saidi http://www.voicesdelaluna.com/bookreviews.html

Latino Stories by Jose B. Gonzalez http://www.latinostories.com/Book_Reviews/ReviewofMonth.htm

Houston Chronicle by Tony Diaz http://www.houstonchronicle.com/local/gray-matters/article/Lavando-Natalia-Trevi-o-airs-dirty-laundry-5630893.php

ADOPTED FOR COURSEWORK Fall 2014 at the following universities

The University of Texas at San Antonio

The University of the Incarnate Word, San Antonio

The University of Texas Pan-Am, Edinburg

PREVIOUS READINGS

San Antonio Book Festival, April 5th

San Antonio, Barnes & Noble, Voices de la Luna Featured Reader, April 23rd

MegaCorazon Poetry Broadcast, April 30th

McNay Art Museum’s Mother America Reading, May 11th

June 27, 2014, Austin, Reading, Resistencia Bookstore, 7 PM

July 16 Omaha, Nebraska, Benson Brewery

July 23 Houston, Reading, Tinteros and Casa Ramirez times TBA

Mongrel Empire Press Announces New Short-Story Collection

Mongrel Empire Press Announces The Long Rifle Season, a collection of stories and tales by James Murray

PREORDER THE LONG RIFLE SEASON HERE

The Long Rifle Season 

Norman, OK August 2014- Mongrel Empire Press, an Eclectic Publishing House specializing in regional and uncommon literary works, announces the publication of The Long Rifle Season, a collection of Oklahoma stories and tales by James Murray.

James Murray’s The Long Rifle Season is a collection of stories both historical and contemporary. Some of the stories could be described as revisionist westerns, others as character studies or as literary sociological explorations of the past and present of Indian Territory in its many incarnations. There is no doubt that The Long Rifle Season stands among the best of the grit lit / rough South genre: fatalistic in humor, devoid of romanticism, anti-nostalgic, unwaveringly truthful, deeply authentic.

Quraysh Ali Lansana, Oklahoma born and raised poet and former director of the Gwendolyn Brooks Center at Chicago State University praises The Long Rifle Season: “Murray populates this Oklahoma, ‘this continuation of the frontier by other means,’ with a deft historical and cultural congestion of intimate minutiae that comprise the substance of a specific and geographically unique kind of hard living. The Long Rifle Season captures the relentless and unforgiving sensory assault of earthen Okie humanity with the vernacular dexterity and quiet lyrical wisdom of a good front porch yarn. A kind of grace. A kind of disgrace. A kind of cheap beer elegance.

James Murray is a farmer, writer, and historian living in Cherokee County, Oklahoma. With Murv Jacob and Deborah L. Duvall, Murray co-wrote Secret History of the Cherokees which won the 2012 Best Historical Novel Award from Native Writers’ Circle of the Americas. He has also published writing in Counterpunch and Race Traitor. Murray is currently working on a novel about Cherokee outlaw Ned Christie and another set in contemporary Tulsa, Oklahoma.

For more information on Mongrel Empire Press or to obtain review copies of this title and others, contact the Press by sending an email from the web site: www.mongrelempirepress.org. Mongrel Empire Press titles are available from the Press, the authors, most online bookstores, and selected independent bookstores. Booksellers and gift shops will find Mongrel Empire Press books available through Ingram and Baker & Taylor (all MEP titles are wholesaled at full trade discount, and are returnable). Print-suitable author and book cover images are available on request.

About Mongrel Empire Press
Mongrel Empire Press was established in 2007 with a mission to publish well-written, thoughtfully-considered works across generic and disciplinary boundaries. The Press actively identifies and promotes Oklahoma and regional writers while at the same time making room for outside the region works that, because of their mixed generic, disciplinary, and philosophical approaches, cannot find a home at other presses that have a more narrowly defined mission.

Contact:
Jeanetta Calhoun Mish, Editor
Mongrel Empire Press
mongrel@mongrelempire.org
http://www.mongrelempirepress.org