L.A. Book Launch: Lisa Alvarez, Daniel Olivas, & Adolfo Guzman Lopez

Join us for an evening of powerful storytelling with three renowned authors from Southern California, Lisa Alvarez, Daniel Olivas, and Adolfo Guzman-Lopez, as they read from their new works exploring resistance rooted in place, adding their voices to the contemporary Chicanx literary landscape.

Lisa Alvarez presents Some Final Beauty and Other Stories, a collection that traces the struggles and triumphs of women and Chicanx characters whose lives intersect with justice, love, and community power, capturing the spirit of empowerment in the struggle for justice faced by marginalized communities in a nation defined by politicians from Reagan to Trump. Both the author and her characters craft a chronicle of lives lived with purpose, resilience, and the hope of a better future.

Daniel Olivas brings to the stage his timely and inventive play Waiting for Godínez, a reimagining of Beckett’s Waiting for Godot. The forever-waiting characters of Estragon and Vladimir are embodied in Jesús and Isabel, two Mexican friends living in the States. Each night, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents kidnap Jesús and throw him into a cage, intending to deport him. Olivas's work critiques U.S. immigration policy and humanizes the plight undocumented people face in a country that both needs and disdains them.

Journalist and poet Adolfo Guzman-Lopez will read from his debut collection California Southern: writing from the road, 1992–2025 traversing border towns, working-class neighborhoods, and the poetic soul of Los Angeles. Blending reportage and lyricism, Guzman-Lopez reflects on his life as an immigrant, son, and chronicler of a California in flux.

Doors Open: 7:00 PM I Readings: 7:30 PM

About the Authors

Lisa Alvarez, born and raised in Los Angeles, has worked with many peace, justice, and civil rights campaigns. She earned an MFA in writing at UC Irvine. She is a professor of English at Irvine Valley College and co-directs the summer writer’s workshops at the Community of Writers in Olympic Valley, California. Her work has appeared in Air/Light, Anacapa Review, Citric Acid, Faultline, Huizache, Santa Monica Review, among other publications. She lives in Modjeska Canyon. In the late 80s, she worked at Beyond Baroque, managing the bookstore.

Daniel A. Olivas is the author of 13 books, including Waiting for Godínez (University of New Mexico Press, 2025), Chicano Frankenstein (Forest Avenue Press, 2024), and Crossing the Border: Collected Poems (Pact Press, 2017). Widely anthologized, Olivas has written on literature and culture for the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, Los Angeles Review of Books, Zocálo, Latino Book Review, Alta Journal, and The Guardian. He earned his degree in English literature from Stanford University, and law degree from UCLA. By day, Olivas is a senior attorney with the California Department of Justice.

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez has been a reporter at LAist 89.3, the National Public Radio affiliate in Los Angeles, since 2000. He's been a poet even longer. In 1994 he co-founded the performance-poetry group The Taco Shop Poets in San Diego. The group toured nationwide for a decade. In the early 2000s he founded the Spine of Califas poetry series with Xiuy Velo and Willie Herron of Los Illegals. But to appreciate how the Mexicano-Chicano-American parts of him were hard to hold together, check out the 1990s Chicano true crime podcast he reported and hosted for LAist Studios, The Forgotten Revolutionary. It won a Golden Mic for 2022. Adolfo lives in Long Beach with his family. California Southern: writing from the road, 1992-2025 collects his poetry and prose.

About Beyond Baroque

is one of the United States' leading independent Literary | Arts Centers and public spaces dedicated to expanding the public's knowledge of poetry, literature and art through cultural events and community interaction. Founded in 1968 as an experimental literary magazine, Beyond Baroque is based out of the original City Hall building in Venice, California. The Center offers a diverse variety of literary and arts programming including readings and workshops. The building also houses a bookstore with a large collection of new poetry books for sale.

Livestream: If you can’t join us in-person the event will be livestreamed on at the scheduled time of the event.

Ticket purchase is required. No one will be turned away for lack of funds! Tickets will be available at the Beyond Baroque bookstore on the day of the event, but we recommend registering in advance through Eventbrite. Masks are encouraged while inside our center.

Event attendees are expected to behave in a respectful and considerate manner while in our space. Beyond Baroque reserves the right to remove individuals from our events, virtual or otherwise, if they are not respecting the space, fellow attendees, or performers.

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