Gustavo Arellano Interviews Lorna Dee Cervantes and Herbert Siguenza at the East Los Book Festival

Join LA Times journalist Gustavo Arellano as he interviews two Latino Legends: the American Book Award-winning poet Lorna Dee Cervantes and the famed actor and playwright Herbert Siguenza (CULTURE CLASH).

East Los Book Festival takes place on Saturday, September 12, 2026, from 10:00 AM to 4:00 PM at the East LA Civic Center, featuring main stage authors, book signings, live readings, a vendor marketplace, and a kids stage.

East LA Civic Center

4801 E 3rd St, Los Angeles, CA 90022

Opening Panel:

Gustavo Arellano is a columnist for the Los Angeles Times, covering Southern California everything and a bunch of the West and beyond. He was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Opinion Writing in 2026 and Commentary in 2025. He was also a finalist in 2025 for the Mike Royko Award for Commentary and Column Writing and was part of the team that won the 2023 Pulitzer Prize in Breaking News for reporting on a leaked audio recording that upended Los Angeles politics. Arellano previously worked at OC Weekly, where he was an investigative reporter for 15 years and editor for six, wrote a column called ¡Ask a Mexican! and is the author of Taco USA: How Mexican Food Conquered America. He’s the child of two Mexican immigrants, one of whom came to this country in the trunk of a Chevy.

Born in San Francisco, raised in San José, Barrio Horseshoe, Lorna Dee Cervantes was a self-taught activist by 15, taught herself how to run her own printing press and was Founding Editor/Publisher of MANGO Publications at 20, and author of the American Book Award winning EMPLUMADA at 24. A XícanIndX poet (Chumash/Purépecha), Cervantes (PhD/ABD, History of Consciousness) was a Professor of English for 20 years at the University of Colorado, Boulder, serving as Director of Creative Writing. Cervantes has held faculty positions at the University of Houston, the University of California, Berkeley, where she has served as a UC Regents Lecturer in the English department, and as a Visiting Writer at Yale, Vassar, and others. Awarded 2 NEA Fellowships, 2 Pushcart Prizes, a Lila Wallace/Reader's Digest Award, state arts grants, and numerous awards for 6 books of poetry including her recent, April on Olympia, Cervantes has presented her poetry at 100s of campuses, venues and countries over the past 50 years. Her poems have appeared in 100s of anthologies and publications (Norton, Heath, Penguin, Poetry). Her newest, FIRE: Poems Against Pandemic, is forthcoming from El Martillo Press (2026).

Herbert Siguenza was recently the Playwright in Residence for the San Diego Repertory Theatre, thanks to a generous grant from the  Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Herbert is also a founding member of the performance group CULTURE CLASH. Along with Richard Montoya and Ric Salinas, Culture Clash is the most produced Chicano theater troupe in the United States. Founded in San Francisco in 1984, Culture Clash has performed on the stages of America’s top regional theaters including the Mark Taper Forum, The Kennedy Center, The Arena Stage, and more. As a solo writer and performer, Mr. Siguenza has written and produced Cantinflas!, A Weekend with Pablo Picasso, Steal Heaven, El Henry (Best new play San Diego Critics Circle Award 2014), Manifest Destinitis, Beachtown, Bad Hombres/Good Wives, A People’s Cuban Christmas Tale, It’s A Wonderful Vida, Star of Ocotillo and The Many Sins of Diego Rivera. Mr. Siguenza is also an accomplished visual artist and has exhibited both nationally and internationally. He has a BFA in printmaking from the California College of Arts, Oakland, California. TV and Film credits: Ben Ten Alien Swarm for the Cartoon Network, Larry Crowne feature film directed by Tom Hanks. His voice was prominently featured in Pixar’s 2017 Oscar winning animation feature, Coco.

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.

For more information: https://www.instagram.com/eastlosbookfestival