• Sergio Troncoso (pictured at right) will read from his new novel, From This Wicked Patch of Dust, 10:30 a.m. today (Thursday) as part of the Smithsonian Latino Virtual Museum. Go to http://www.ustream.tv/channel/smithsonian-latino-virtual-museum.
• Wordstock, a book festival in Portland, Org., will begin today and run through Sunday. The event will include sessions with Troncoso, Eduardo Halfon and Los Porteños, a Portland-based Latino writers group.
• Benjamin Alire Sáenz and Daniel Chacón (pictured at left) have begun hosting a new radio program about literature, Words on a Wire, that airs Sundays on El Paso’s NPR station, KTEP. You can hear the show online. They’ll read a poem by Luis J. Rodriguez on Sunday’s episode.
• The Californian covered Rodriguez’s speech about gang activity in Salinas, Calif. His new book is It Calls You Back: An Odyssey Through Love, Addiction, Revolutions, and Healing.
• Mexican poet Javier Sicilia is profiled in this New York Times article about his movement to stop drug violence in this country.
The Hispanic Reader 