Chicana Noir at Fables & Fancies Bookstore w/ Désirée Zamorano

Margaret Elysia Garcia hosts reading and book signing with Desiree Zamorano at Fables & Fancies in Sierra Madre!

Fables & Fancies

50 W Sierra Madre Blvd,

Sierra Madre, CA 91024

6:30 - 8 pm

About the book

"In Chicana Noir and Other Stories, the real horror isn't supernatural—it's adjuncting without health insurance. From the fever dream of "Chicana Noir Story # 1" to the revenge fantasy of "The Last Cruise," Margaret Elysia Garcia writes with the urgency of someone who knows that survival itself is resistance. Garcia's narrators exist in the margins: too educated for some spaces, not "authentic" enough for others, navigating a world where the supernatural feels way more believable than the American Dream. A demon sits on your chest in your dead brother's room. Your grandmother practices witchcraft to protect the family. A serial killer terrorizes the city while three teenage girls form a blood pact. From "Come and Play" to "The Last Cruise," these stories pulse with the rhythm of Whittier Boulevard, the Smiths on repeat, and the complicated inheritance of being a Chicana-in-Doc-Martens in a country that wants you invisible. Garcia has created something rare: a collection that's both deeply personal and politically urgent, where punk feminism meets magical realism and neither apologizes for taking up the space."

–Ariel Gore, author of We Were Witches, The Wayward Writer, and Rehearsals for Dying

About the author

Macondo fellow Margaret Elysia Garcia is the author of the poetry collection the daughterland (El Martillo Press, 2023), the short story collections Chicana Noir and Other Stories (El Martillo Press, 2026) and Graft (Tolsun Books, 2022), and the poetry chapbooks Your House is on Fire (Daxson Publishing, 2026), Iconistas!, and Burn Scars, (Lit Kit Collective, 2025, 2022). She’s the co-editor of the Golden Poppy Award finalist in non-fiction anthology Red Flag Warning: Mutual Aid and Survival in California’s Fire Country (AK Press, 2025). She’s the winner of the James L. Doti Outstanding Graduate Student Award from Wilkinson College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences at Chapman University.

Désirée Zamorano

Désirée Zamorano is an acclaimed American novelist, short story writer, playwright, and educator whose work explores themes of identity, injustice, and cultural intersection, with a strong focus on Latina visibility. She is the author of the historical fiction novel Dispossessed (2024), which chronicles a family torn apart by the 1930s forced Mexican-American deportations, and the short story collection Amarisa's Cooking Pot (2026). Her highly praised multi-generational novel, The Amado Women, was widely re-released in 2025. She also writes the award-winning Inez Leon mystery series and has co-authored commissioned plays for the Bilingual Foundation for the Arts. Beyond writing, Zamorano is a dedicated academic who teaches linguistic and cultural diversity at California State University, Long Beach. She also serves as the Director of the Community Literacy Center at Occidental College, leading language-arts enrichment for local K–8 students.

El Martillo Press

El Martillo Press publishes writers whose pens strike the page with clear intent; words with purpose to pry apart assumed norms and to hammer away at injustice. El Martillo Press proactively publishes writers looking to pound the pavement to promote their work and the work of their fellow pressmates. El Martillo is the builder of bridges and the destroyer of walls.