El Martillo Press & The Los Angeles Press @ The Pop-Hop

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.

Los Angeles Press

Janet Sarbanes is the author of a work of hybrid theory, Letters on the Autonomy Project (punctum books), and two short story collections Army of One (Otis Books) and The Protester Has Been Released, (C & R Press), which was declared a best fiction book of 2017 by Entropy magazine. The recipient of a 2017 Creative Capital/Andy Warhol Foundation art writer’s grant, she has published art criticism and other critical writing  in museum catalogues, anthologies and journals. She lives in Los Angeles and teaches in the MFA Creative Writing Program and the MA in Aesthetics and Politics at CalArts.

Christina Cha is a teacher for the Story Is a State of Mind School, a short fiction writing program created by acclaimed author Sarah Selecky, featuring master classes with Margaret Atwood, George Saunders, Francesca Lia Block, and others. She has studied with Sarah Selecky, ZsuZsi Gartner, and Peter Levitt.

Winner of both an Oxford Prize in Poetry and the Edwin Markham Prize in Poetry, Linda Ravenswood is a poet and performance artist living in Los Angeles. Working closely with arts organizations, including the Poetry Society of New York and Red Light Lit, Ravenswood fuses visual and performance art in poetry reading and burlesque venues as well as deconstructed live literature events. Her collection Cantadora: Letters from California was published in January 2023. Other publications include The Stan Poems (Pedestrian Press, 2022), the forthcoming a poem is a house (FlowerSong Press, 2023), and If we never meet again: A Pandemic diary (X Artists’ Books, 2023). Ravenswood was educated at CalArts and Mount St. Mary’s College (MA 2009) and is completing a PhD from the Pacifica Graduate Institute. Her arts praxes include collaboration, teaching, and curating arts events and publications. She is the founding editor-in-chief of the Los Angeles Press and is the founder of the poet laureate programme in Glendale, California.

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