Hey, everybody.
Welcome.
How are you doing tonight?
All right.
I'm taking that as good.
My name is Tyler.
I work here as the director at the Poetry Center.
It's nice to have a crowd.
Thanks for being here on a Thursday night.
We're thrilled about this night.
In particular, we have two amazing fiction writers
with us tonight, Rodrigo Restrepo Montoya
and Fernando Flores.
And this is a collaboration that's
in partnership with the creative writing
program at the University of Arizona,
and this is the distinguished visiting writer series.
You're going to hear more about that,
but it's a joy for the Poetry Center
to be able to partner with our colleagues
across campus and close collaborators,
and to be bringing fiction into the world for you all,
which will happen with these guys shortly.
I want to point to a couple of things
that are coming up at the Poetry Center
and let you know about them.
Two more readings that will happen in February.
So next Thursday at 7 o'clock, we'll
be back here with the poets, Annie Wenstrup,
who has a book out called the Museum of Unnatural Histories.
And then Lena Khalaf Tuffaha, whose
2024 book Something About the Living
won the National Book Award.
So they're paired together.
They'll be here next week at 7 o'clock at the Poetry Center.
That would be a great one.
I hope to see you guys here for that.
I feel like my voice just got louder
when I got back to the microphone, which
is the note that I'm remembering to tell the writers that it
works best when you stay next to the microphone.
And then after that, on February 26 at 7 o'clock,
back here at the Poetry Center, we have our annual Morgan Lucas
Schuldt reading, where we celebrate
new and emerging writers and writers working
with innovative structures.
And so we have the poet Susan Nguyen
and her first book that has come out.
And then the poet Andrew Grace will be here as well.
So both of those on the upcoming Thursdays, 7 o'clock
back here at the Poetry Center.
True to form, we're going to skip a kind of traditional Q
and A after the reading tonight, but books are for sale,
and both of the writers will be happy to sign those
after the reading.
So avail yourselves of those books afterwards.
I know the booksellers will be happy to sell them to you,
and then the writers would be happy to meet you
once the reading is done.
In a second I'll welcome up Paco Cantú,
who's going to tell us more about Rodrigo.
But I want to also make sure--
I'm going to introduce Aaron Cerda, who's
going to introduce Fernando in between.
And so just to give you some context about Aaron,
he's a third year MFA student here
in fiction at the University of Arizona
working on some short stories.
Thesis time is happening.
So when he comes up here, applaud for that work
because he's working on it and getting this done.
He is from the deep South of Texas,
and he primarily writes short stories,
and he does this in collaboration
with a writing partner, who's Monty, which is his dog.
So more about Aaron.
You'll see Aaron come up and introduce Fernando in a moment.
But before that, I'm going to welcome up
Paco Cantú, who's a writer and translator and the author
of the memoir The Line Becomes a River.
He's an assistant faculty member here at the University
of Arizona and creative writing, and he
is co-director of the field studies program
that takes writing students into the field
to do important work around issues in Southern Arizona
and in other places around the country.
Please help me welcome up Paco Cantú.
[APPLAUSE]