&Now 2015: Blast Radius

How to Traffic in Books (And Trace that Traffic): Small Press Editorial Practices in Both Californias / Cómo traficar los libros (y trazar ese tráfico): Prácticas editoriales independientes en las dos Californias

Antena proposes to spark a dialogue—or, ideally, a multi-logue—around cross-cultural and cross-language small press work, defining "cross" and "cultural" in extremely broad and non-traditional terms. Our panel features representatives from four independent presses—two with ties to Southern California and two with ties to Baja California. Each of these presses works across and beyond the borders of language, culture, genre, and aesthetics to create publications, events and interventions that redefine both what is and what is possible. Our panel includes René Castillo from Centro Cultural Artes del Libro (Tijuana), both members of Antena from Libros Antena Books (Houston and Los Angeles), Gidi Loza from Observatorio Editorial Tijuana (Tijuana), and three members of the collective that forms Writ Large Press (Los Angeles). Our panel will be bilingual (some presenters speaking Spanish and some speaking English) and will be interpreted by Antena Los Ángeles, the local satellite of Antena.

Antena’s practice is based in creating spaces for dialogue and discussion where multiple languages coexist on an equal footing. When multiple languages are used in the same room, our capacities for thinking and for communication expand exponentially. In this case, the coexistence of Spanish and English in the same room is also a clear rebuke to a doggedly monolingual U.S. intellectual and social environment. We are especially excited to explore bilingual/multilingual literary practice in the specific context of the “two Californias” that are bisected by the contested and complicated U.S.-Mexico border.