Gage Skidmore
Audio By Carbonatix
It’s not every day that Arizona has the honor of welcoming an internationally renowned Chicana literary icon like Sandra Cisneros.
On Friday, Oct. 10, Tempe will host Cisneros at the Desert Nights, Rising Stars (DNRS) Writers Conference, presented by the Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing. The conference theme, “Iconic Stories: Today and Tomorrow,” will feature more than 70 craft talks, panels and workshops across a variety of genres and forms. It will take place Oct. 9 to 11 at Arizona State University.
Cisneros wrote her first poem at the age of 10 and later became the first Mexican American woman to be published by a mainstream press. Her most celebrated book, “The House on Mango Street” (1984) — about a young girl named Esperanza navigating questions of identity, culture and belonging — has sold more than 6 million copies worldwide and has been translated into over 20 languages. She was recently celebrated on “The View” in honor of Hispanic Heritage Month.
The last time Cisneros visited Arizona was 2017, when she shared the stage with poets Rita Dove and Joy Harjo. This year at DNRS, she will lead a workshop and deliver the keynote address.
She now returns to a state where her book has been banned. “I don’t take it personally. I feel like if you don’t want to look at this from another point of view, what a loss for you,” Cisneros says.
Cisneros emphasizes the importance of finding community, especially at conferences like DNRS. “Our job as artists is a very serious one. We need to be the voice of resistance, of organizing, and of speaking the truth,” she says. “(DNRS) is a wonderful place to brainstorm.”
Besides her multiple accolades, the iconic writer has dedicated decades to nurturing the literary community. She has supported the careers of countless aspiring and emerging writers through the two nonprofit organizations she founded: the Macondo Foundation and the Alfredo Cisneros del Moral Foundation, a grant-making institution that served Texas writers.
Ofelia Montelongo
The Macondo Writers Workshop recently celebrated its 30th anniversary, known as treintañera, in San Antonio. A tribute book to Cisneros, tentatively titled “La Sandra! Writer, Madrina, Icon,” edited by writer Reyna Grande, is in the works, as well as a documentary about her life and legacy.
Recently, the opera adaptation of “The House on Mango Street” premiered in Cooperstown, New York. Cisneros had the opportunity to collaborate with composer Derek Bermel and rediscover her love for the story all over again.
During her keynote speech, she hopes to share her wisdom about writing and the realities of being a writer, the importance of poetry in this moment and the teachers who have planted seeds in us. Right now, she is searching for her former teacher Mrs. Celler and/or her descendants to thank her/them for seeing her as a writer and changing her life. “Mrs. Celler found out when I was in sixth grade that I was an artist and that made all the difference. Her superpower was that she loved us,” she says.
Love is a theme Cisneros often returns to in her conversations with others, as well as in her work. Her book “Puro Amor” reimagines the story of Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo. She believes that with love, things ultimately turn out well.
