Do the labels that we assign people give more power to those creating the categories or those we attempt to categorize? California authors Myriam Gurba and Héctor Tobar kick off Alta Live’s inaugural Writers on Writers series with a sharp and intellectual conversation on their two newly released works of nonfiction. Gurba’s Creep looks at society’s villainous characters, cultures, and institutions through deft cultural criticism, never losing her signature voice. Our Migrant Souls, Tobar’s new book, is a wide-spanning analysis of the term Latino and the meaning it holds, both ethnographic and personal. Sure to come up: being Latinx in today’s world, how to create solidarity in marginalized communities, and much more. Join us as we kick off Alta Journal’s Issue 25, The Writer’s Issue with this exciting series.
Myriam Gurba is a writer and artist. She is the author of the true-crime memoir Mean, a New York Times Editors’ Choice. O, The Oprah Magazine, ranked Mean as one of the best LGBTQ books of all time. Publishers Weekly describes Gurba as having a voice like no other. Her essays and criticism have appeared in the Paris Review, Time, and 4Columns. She has shown art in galleries, museums, and community centers. She lives in Pasadena, California.
Héctor Tobar is a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and novelist. He is the author of the critically acclaimed New York Times bestseller Deep Down Dark, as well as The Barbarian Nurseries, Translation Nation, and The Tattooed Soldier. Tobar is also a contributing writer for the New York Times opinion pages and an associate professor at the University of California, Irvine. He’s written for the New Yorker, the Los Angeles Times, and other publications. His short fiction has appeared in Best American Short Stories, L.A. Noir, Zyzzyva, and Slate. The son of Guatemalan immigrants, he is a native of Los Angeles, where he lives with his family.