Jump to navigation Skip to content
Larissa Lai wins Lambda Literary’s midcareer novelist prize; Macmillan and Hachette introduce new sales programs to assist independent bookstores; Patrick Madden looks beyond the “ready-made” in his essays; and other stories.
As part of a fundraising effort to help Chicago independent bookstore Volumes Bookcafe during the coronavirus pandemic shutdown, Rebecca Makkai enlisted over two dozen writers—including Kristen Arnett, Alexander Chee, Garth Greenwell, Andrew Sean Greer, Lauren Groff, Mira Jacob, Mitchell S. Jackson, R. O. Kwon, Victor LaValle, and Susan Orlean—to participate in a collective performance of the dance scene from John Hughes’s classic 1985 high school film, The Breakfast Club.
Olivia Laing searches for solutions amid catastrophe; literary agent Frances Goldin dies at age ninety-five; S. D. Chrostowska muses on dreaming under the coronavirus; and other stories.
Last week I started off a series of posts featuring some of the ways the Houston literary world has been rising to the occasion with innovation and community in mind during the pandemic. I covered University of Houston’s CoogSlam, and this week I want to give some love to Casa Ramirez Folkart Gallery.
I’ve mentioned Casa Ramirez before which makes them being on this list maybe a little overindulgent but if you are like me, you celebrate your elders when they keep things fresh. Casa Ramirez is doing just that. For the most part, Casa Ramirez is like any staple small business here in Houston, but what makes this space unique is that the couple in charge, Macario Ramirez and Chrissie Dickerson Ramirez, are good luck charms for every Latino in the city.
If you are an artist or writer, fan or hobbyist, Casa Ramirez is like a shrine. If you have a literary event there, having your book in their shop makes it destined for success. I have seen it with my own two eyes. It might be a “folk art” gallery, but don’t let the Ramirezes fool you—they are book lovers and carry an extensive bookstore inside the shop with all the texts to build up an ethnic studies library in Latinx lit.
That said, the stay-at-home orders in Houston have been devastating to businesses and now that Texas has chosen to slowly open up this month, so has Casa Ramirez—but with new safety measures. The shop has created a “retail-to-go” shopping experience: Patrons get to peruse all the art and books with a “curator” by their side to answer questions and make recommendations. Only one person, one couple, or one family is allowed in the shop at a time and you must wear a mask (employees also wear masks). You have access to the whole bookstore and gallery area for thirty to forty minutes, buy what you want and then, boom, you are out the door. The shop has limited hours from noon to 4:00 PM every day.
From what I have heard, they’ve had a line a block long every day. Leave it to Casa Ramirez to lead the way. Check out their Facebook page and their Instagram, @casaramirezfolkartgallery, to see what they have going on.
Lupe Mendez is the literary outreach coordinator for Poets & Writers in Houston. Contact him at Houston@pw.org or on Twitter, @houstonpworg.Kawai Strong Washburn on using a chorus of narrators; Gabrielle Bell discusses her semi-autobiographical comics; the Washington Post assembles a new virtual literary events calendar; and other stories.
Bryan Washington wins the 2020 Dylan Thomas Prize; the Guardian talks to Francophone African authors about the movement to publish locally; Entertainment Weekly hosts a roundtable on queer literature; and other stories.
The author of And Then We Grew Up considers solitude, loneliness, and the act of writing in a city hit hard by COVID-19.
Colleagues and friends pay tribute to Carolyn Reidy; Myriam Gurba questions Joan Didion’s claim to California; the Economist highlights nurse-authors; and other stories.
Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha wins prize for lesbian/queer nonfiction; Kundiman accepts nine fellows for 2020 Mentorship Lab Program; a pandemic novelist reflects on the coronavirus; and other stories.
In this PEN to Paper series video, PEN America president Jennifer Egan guides viewers through a short writing exercise involving a “word throw,” designed to help writers to free up their minds to the unconscious imagination. The series is part of PEN America’s 2020 World Voices Festival: These Truths, held digitally this year.
