El Martillo Press & Moon Tide Press @ North Figueroa Bookshop

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. There is strength in El Martillo. Founded in Los Angeles in 2023 by Matt Sedillo and David A. Romero, and launched with a diverse group of celebrated and hardworking writers who embody our working-class intellectual spirit, El Martillo Press maintains an editorial board that makes its selections for publishing.

Moon Tide Press

Pushcart Prize-nominated poet Rich Ferguson has shared the stage with Patti Smith, Wanda Coleman, Moby, and other esteemed poets and musicians. Ferguson has been selected by the National Beat Poetry Foundation, Inc. (NBPF), to serve as the State of California Beat Poet Laureate (Sept. 2020 to Sept. 2022). He is a featured performer in the film, What About Me? featuring Michael Stipe, Michael Franti, k.d. lang, and others. His poetry and award-winning spoken-word music videos have been widely anthologized, and he was a winner in Opium Magazine’s Literary Death Match, L.A. He is the author of the poetry collection, 8th & Agony (Punk Hostage Press), and the novel, New Jersey Me (Rare Bird Books). Ferguson’s newest poetry collection, Everything is Radiant Between the Hates, was published in January 2021 by Moon Tide Press.

Ellen Webre is a biracial, Taiwanese-American poet, born in Hong Kong and raised in California. She attended the Creative Writing Conservatory of the Orange County High School of the Arts, and received a degree in screenwriting at Chapman University. She is currently acting as a social media marketing specialist and videographer for Moon Tide Press, is a co-host of Two Idiots Peddling Poetry, and is an editor of Freezeray Magazine. Ellen’s debut book, A Burning Lake of Paper Suns, was released in October 2021 with Moon Tide Press. Her poem “Metaphors for My Body in Midwinter” was nominated for the Pushcart Prize 2021. Ellen’s other poems have most recently been published in A Moon of One’s Own, FreezeRay Press, Sh!t Men Say to Me Anthology in Response to Toxic Masculinity, DARK INK: A Horror Anthology, and Voicemail Poems.

Brian Sonia-Wallace is a queer, bilingual poet and cultural worker interested in themes of intimacy, service, debt, queerness, grief, authorship, memory, and transcendence. He is the West Hollywood City Poet Laureate and founder of Pride Poets, an Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellow, and the author of Maze Mouth and The Poetry of Strangers: What I Learned Traveling America with a Typewriter. His long-term project RENT Poet invites the public to share their stories in exchange for poems about them, written in real-time on a vintage typewriter. Brian runs a monthly queer open mic at Micky’s WeHo and teaches at the UCLA Extension Writers' Program.

El Martillo Press

Margaret Elysia Garcia is the author of the short story collection Graft, the chapbook Burn Scars, and the daughterland (El Martillo Press, 2023). She’s the co-editor of the anthology Red Flag Warning: Northern Californians Living with Fire out on HeyDay Books in 2024. She writes about family, culture and surviving climate change disasters. 

Ceasar K. Avelar is the current Poet Laureate of Pomona. He is the writer in residence of Cafe con Libros Press, and the founder of Obsidian Tongues open mic. Avelar writes through the sociological lens of a blue-collar worker. He is the author of God of the Air Hose and Other Blue-Collar Poems (El Martillo Press, 2023). Avelar will graduate this summer from Cal Poly Pomona with a bachelor’s degree in Sociology.  

Donato Martinez was born in the small pueblo, Garcia de la Cadena, Zacatecas, Mexico and immigrated into the USA at six years old. He teaches English composition, Literature, and Creative Writing at Santa Ana College. He has also taught classes in Chicano Studies. He has a self-published collection with three other Inland Empire poets, Tacos de Lengua. His full collection of poetry, Touch the Sky, was published by El Martillo Press in June 2023.

Co-founders

Matt Sedillo has been described as the "best political poet in America" as well as "the poet laureate of the struggle." His work has drawn comparisons in print to Bertolt Brecht, Roque Dalton, Amiri Baraka, Alan Ginsberg, Carl Sandburg  and various other legends of the past.

David A. Romero is a Mexican-American spoken word artist from Diamond Bar, CA. Romero is the author of My Name Is Romero (FlowerSong Press), a book reviewed by Gustavo Arellano (¡Ask a Mexican!), Curtis Marez (University Babylon), and founding member of Ozomatli, Ulises Bella.

El Martillo Press

Instagram: @elmartillopress

Margaret Elysia Garcia

Instagram: @writerchickmama

Donato Martinez

Instagram: @donatomartinez1

Ceasar K. Avelar

Instagram: @ceasarkavelar

Matt Sedillo

Instagram: @matt_sedillo

David A. Romero

Instagram: @davidaromerospokenword