I am excited to announce the forthcoming publication of my piece “We Flew To Guatemala When I Was Five,” in Vol. 38 of Riprap Literary Journal, produced by the Creative Writing MFA Program at CSU Long Beach. It’s a Pantoum poem that took a lot of work and it’s one of my faveskies. I wrote it in college and I am so happy that it has finally found a home.

In honor of the publications launch, Riprap is throwing a wonderful reading and release party to celebrate. It takes place next week on Thursday May 5th from 7PM – 9PM at the Soroptimist House on the CSU Long Beach campus.

I, along with other contributors to vol. 38, have been invited to read my work at the party, which is a thrilling pleasure for any writer, once you get past the inevitable heebie-jeebies of course. So I’ll be there reading my piece, “We Flew To Guatemala When I Was Five,” and if you can’t already tell, I’m super nervous but also very excited! 😅

So for those of you in the LB area who don’t already have Cinco de Mayo plans and who can make it out to support, come on by, I’d love to see some friendly faces in the crowd. But if you can’t make it, no worries at all, I understand. Just be sure to send me your good juju vibes, that way I don’t trip on my way up to the stage or mispronounce my own name or something silly like that. And for all those interested, I’ll be sure to post up the link to the publication with my piece along with some photos of me reading (maybe even video footage if I can figure that out) after the launch. 😎

Here is the Facebook event link for anyone interested in attending.

Thanks for tuning in. I’ll be in touch shortly once the publication goes live. 😉

-AlessandraWrites