"Authors as Booksellers" Day, 2014

What if you walked into La Casa Azul Bookstore and saw your favorite author at the register, recommending his or her favorite books?

That is what you will see on November 29 when four local authors join us on Small Business Saturday!

The event is part of a national campaign to promote shopping INDIE this holiday season -- supporting local bookstores in communities nationwide.

Join Iris Morales, Jake Perez, Vicky Grise, and Michelle Herrera-Mulligan – and find out what their favorite reading selections are this holiday season!

1:00pm - 2:30pm:

Jake Perez is the creator of the Sweet Coco Series, which includes Chocolate Maker's Apprentice and Dessert with Dad, children's books in celebration of parenthood and family. When he isn't writing children's books, Jake works as a TV journalist.

Jake is also co-founder of Wink, a series of wordplay workshops that transforms Atlanta's inner-city kids and teens into published authors. For more information, check out Wren's Nest, Wink's literacy partner.

3:00 - 4:30pm:

Iris Morales was the first woman to join the Young Lords party, after having established a tenant movement in East Harlem in the early 1970s. She brought forth an agenda to advocate women's rights, better housing, and improved schooling in the Latino community. She created La Luchadora, a newsletter and organization that highlighted women's issues.Iris is the founder of Red Sugar Cane Press, an independent press dedicated to presenting emerging and well-known artists and activists from the Caribbean, Latino/a and African diasporas whose works break new ground, broaden our knowledge of history and culture, entertain and inspire.

3:30 – 5:00pm:

Michelle Herrera Mulligan has worked as an author and journalist in New York City for thirteen years. She edited and contributed a novella to Juicy Mangos (Atria Books, 2007), the first-ever literary collection of Latina erotica in English, which Pultizer-Prize-winning author Oscar Hijuelos called "not only a tantalizing read, but a deeply rewarding one as well." In 2004, she co-edited Border-Line Personalities (HarperCollins, 2004), a collection of essays on culture clash and the contemporary American Latina experence. She received an Outstanding Contributions to Hispanic Studies Award in 2006.

4:30 – 6:00pm:

     

Vicki Grise's work has been produced, commissioned and developed at the Alliance Theatre, Bihl Haus Arts, Company of Angels, Cornerstone Theatre, Highways Performance Space, New York Theatre Workshop, Playwrights' Center, Pregones Theatre, REDCAT, Victory Gardens, and Yale Repertory Theatre. Her play blu was a recipient of the Yale Drama Series Award. As an activist, she has facilitated organizing efforts among women, immigrant, Chicano, working class and queer youth. Virginia has taught writing for performance at the university level, as a public school teacher, in community centers and in the juvenile correction system.