At the end of last week’s “Let’s Get Lit” literature festival, students were provided with an opportunity to listen to poet Marcelo Hernandez Castillo read a few excerpts from multiple of his works. This follows the third day of the event, where attendees collaborated to make poems.
The theme of poetry for the final two days was intentional as April is National Poetry Month and heavily influenced Yollotl Lopez, the head of planning’s decision to choose Marcelo Hernandez Castillo as the guest speaker.
Hernandez Castillo expressed that when going to events such as the literature festival, he hopes to share something the audience can relate to, and also the other way around.
“I often times resonate with what somebody tells me of their experience, even though it might be different, there’s still a lot of similarities,” Castillo said.
Shortly before Hernandez Castillo took the stage, the winners of the short fiction contest, Kelly Castillo, and the poetry contest, Yelena Rosco, were announced.
They won a variety of goodies, including a $50 gift card to Half Price Books and a calligraphy set. The entries for the writing contest were narrowed down by the LMC Writer’s Guild.
“They had a lit festival before they did a writing contest. Wow, we gotta do this again. And so we’re like, okay, let’s make it happen,” said Lopez, referring to the literature fest’s pre-pandemic history.
The “Let’s Get Lit” event has had a little something for everyone. From dialogue writing to poetry, comics, and zines, students had a selection of workshops to choose from.
“It’s been pretty fun, a lot of the workshops were very interesting. I attended the dialogue and comic-making one,”said student Jonathan Canales. “I enjoyed sharing my writing in a closed space, and the comic-making one was a lot more open, a lot of people were having fun with it.”
The sentiment of writing is also shared with The Secretary of the Writer’s Guild, Elias Lockhart, who said, “We love books, we love writing, we want people to love writing.”
Lopez expressed a desire to make this event “As free as possible” for students, and that was made possible by the collaborative effort of the English Department, Puente, and Office of Equity, where most of the funding for the event came from.
Also, the Writer’s Guild and Half Price Books donated a substantial number of books for the event.
The final day of the event had a great turnout; many attendees roamed the student union, visiting booths from a wide array of clubs, programs, and individuals.
Some of the tables at the event included Umoja, Tandem, Partners in Early Learning, Honors Club, Middle Eastern Literature, LatinX Literature, Contra Costa Library, Los Medanos Library, Self-published student Kali Canedo, and so much more.
While day three’s “Collective Poetry and Performance Workshop” was tight-knit, having two small groups of people collaborating to make poems.
The event left many with a sense of community, leaving the planners of the event hopeful that it will continue forward.
This article has been updated to feature the links of the organization.
https://www.instagram.com/lmc_writersguild/
