Soundworks Presents El Martillo Press at the Boyle Heights Arts Conservatory

The Boyle Heights Arts Conservatory

2708 E Cesar E Chavez Ave #101

Los Angeles, CA 90033, USA

7 pm - 9 pm

Showcase with open mic!

Lorna Dee Cervantes

Born in San Francisco, raised in San José, Barrio Horseshoe, Lorna Dee Cervantes was a self-taught activist by fifteen, taught herself how to run her own printing press and was the founding editor/publisher of MANGO Publications at twenty, and author of the American Book Award-winning EMPLUMADA at twenty-four. A XícanIndX poet (Chumash/Purépecha), Cervantes (PhD/ABD, History of Consciousness) was professor of English for twenty 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 two NEA Fellowships, two Pushcart Prizes, a Lila Wallace/Reader's Digest Award, stateartsgrants, and numerous awards for six books of poetry including her recent collection, April on Olympia, Cervantes has presented her poetry at hundreds of campuses, venues and countries over the past fifty years. Her poems have appeared in hundreds of anthologies and publications (Norton, Heath, Penguin, Poetry). Her newest solo collection, FIRE: Poems Against Pandemic, is forthcoming from El Martillo Press (2026).

Matt Sedillo

Matt Sedillo has been described as the "best political poet in America" by investigative reporter Greg Palast as well as "the poet laureate of the struggle" by historian Paul Ortiz. His work has drawn comparisons in print to Bertolt Brecht, Roque Dalton, Amiri Baraka, Allen Ginsberg, Carl Sandburg,  and various other legends of the past. Sedillo was the recipient of the 2017 Joe Hill Labor Poetry award, a panelist at the 2020 Texas book festival, a participant in the 2012 San Francisco International Poetry Festival, the 2022 Elba Poetry Festival, the 2023 Guadalajara Book Fair, 2024 Medellin Poetry Festival, the 2025 Hurlingham Poetry Festival, the 2025 Ghazipur Literary Festival, the 2025 Guadalajara Book Fair and the recipient of the 2022 Dante's Laurel. Sedillo has appeared on CSPAN and has been featured in the New York Times, Chicago Tribune, The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and Axios, among many other media outlets and publications. Sedillo has spoken at Casa de las Americas in Havana, Cuba, the National Library of Chile in Santiago Chile, Estadio Nacional in Santiago, Chile, at numerous conferences and forums such as the Association of Writers and Writing Programs, the National Conference on Race & Ethnicity in American Higher Education, the National Association of Chicana/Chicano Studies, the Left Forum, the US Social Forum, and at over a hundred universities and colleges, including UNAM, the University of Cambridge, UC Berkeley, Stanford, the University of Napoli among many others.

Briana Muñoz

Briana Muñoz is a poet from Southern California. She is the author ofLoose Lips(Prickly Pear Publishing, 2019) andEverything is Returned to the Soil(FlowerSong Press, 2021). Her work has been published in the anthologies:Somos Xicanas,Reimagine America, andBeat Not Beat, as well as on websites and in literary journals:Cultural Daily,The OaklandArtsReview,Dryland Literary Journal,Angel City Review,and several other publications. Briana is the founder of Poetry as Harm Reduction and currently serves as a member on the board of directors for the Los Angeles Poetry Society. She has performed poetry in places like the International Poetry Festival of Havana, Cuba, the 2015 Festival de Poesia in Tijuana, Baja California, MX, as well as at the XXI Congreso Internacional de Literatura y Estudios Hispanicos in Quito, Ecuador. She currently lives in Southern California with her partner and child.

David A. Romero

David A. Romero is a Mexican-American poet, novelist, and publisher from Diamond Bar, CA. He is the co-founder and editor-in-chief of El Martillo Press. Romero is the author of the novelThe Enemy Sleeps(El Martillo Press, 2026) and the books of poetryMy Name Is Romero(FlowerSong Press, 2020) andDiamond Bars 2(Moon Tide Press, 2024). Romero has received honorariums from nearly a hundred colleges and universities in thirty-four different states in the USA and has also performed live in Mexico, Italy, and France. His poem, "You Were Born a Tree" was sent to the Moon by NASA in 2025 as part of the Lunar Codex. Romero's work has been published in literary magazines and anthologies in the United States, Mexico, England, Scotland, Cuba, Canada, and Hungary. Romero has opened for Latin Grammy winning bands Ozomatli and La Santa Cecilia. Romero's work has been published in anthologies alongside poets laureate Joy Harjo, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Luis J. Rodriguez, Jack Hirschman, and Tongo Eisen-Martin. Romero has won the Uptown Slam at the historic Green Mill in Chicago; the birthplace of slam poetry.

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. 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.