The Human Condition Depicted

11:15 am - 12:15 pm
| Location of Session: Rogers Hall
Adult Sessions

Start of Signing: 12:30 PM
| Signing Location: Festival Marketplace

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About the Event

Wondra Chang (Sonju), ire’ne lara silva (Hibiscus Tacos), and Ursula Villarreal-Moura (Math for the Self-Crippling) explore the art of telling stories that span decades and centuries-old traditions while depicting life in all its pain and wonder. Join them in discussing a woman’s journey through the rapid social and cultural changes of Japanese-occupied Korea; love, death, and tacos in contemporary Austin; and mysticism and cultura in 1990-contemporary San Antonio.

About the Authors

Wondra Chang

Wondra Chang was born in South Korea and has lived in the U.S. since 1970. Her writing discipline began at age 10, writing five short stories a day under the tutelage of a writing teacher. She won first place in a province-wide in-person writing competition. Her short story was published in Daejon Ilbo, the daily newspaper of Chungnam Province. She studied journalism at Ewha Womans University in Seoul, Korea. She currently lives in San Antonio, Texas, with her husband, Bernard Rauch. Chang is the author of Sonju.

ire’ne lara silva

ire’ne lara silva is the author of four poetry collections, furia, Blood Sugar Canto, Cuicacalli/House of Song, and FirstPoems, two chapbooks, Enduring Azucares and Hibiscus Tacos, and a short story collection, flesh to bone, which won the Premio Aztlán. She and poet Dan Vera are also the co-editors of Imaniman: Poets Writing in the Anzaldúan Borderlands, a collection of poetry and essays. ire’ne is the recipient of a 2021 Tasajillo Writers Grant, a 2017 NALAC Fund for the Arts Grant, the final Alfredo Cisneros del Moral Award, and was the Fiction Finalist for AROHO’s 2013 Gift of Freedom Award. Most recently, ire’ne was awarded the 2021 Texas Institute of Letters Shrake Award for Best Short Nonfiction. ire’ne is currently working on a second collection of short stories titled the light of your body.

Ursula Villarreal-Moura

Ursula Villarreal-Moura is the author of Math for the Self-Crippling, selected by Zinzi Clemmons as the Gold Line Press fiction contest winner, and Like Happiness (forthcoming with Celadon Books). Her writing has been nominated for Best of the Net, Best Small Fictions, a Pushcart Prize, and longlisted for Best American Short Stories 2015. Math for the Self-Crippling is her first book.

Moderator

Patricia Portales

Patricia Portales is Professor of English and Humanities at San Antonio College and a member of the Macondo Writer’s Workshop. She earned a Master of Arts in English from St. Mary’s University and a Ph.D. in U.S. in English from the University of Texas at San Antonio. Her research interests include contemporary American literature with a concentration in ethnic literature, oral history, and semiotics. She serves on the San Antonio Book Festival Advisory Committee and is also a fiction writer and book reviewer.