Margaret Elysia Garcia releases Chicana Noir & Other Stories at Whittier Art Gallery

Margaret Elysia Garcia releases her latest collection of short stories, Chicana Noir & Other Stories (El Martillo Press, 2026) at the Whittier Art Gallery.

Whittier Art Gallery

8035 Painter Ave

Whittier, CA 90602

7 - 9 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), of the short story collection Graft (Tolsun Books, 2022), and the poetry chapbooks Iconistas!, and Burn Scars, (Lit Kit Collective, 2025, 2022). She’s the co-editor of the anthology Red Flag Warning: Mutual Aid and Survival in California’s Fire Country (AK Press, 2025). Her second short story collection Chicana Noir and Other Stories will be published in 2026 by El Martillo Press. She's the recipient of Chapman University's non-tuition fellowship for Creative Writing.

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