Powell's Presents: Wendy C. Ortiz in Conversation With Emilly Prado

Author Wendy C. Ortiz joins us to present her newly reissued books, Excavation, Bruja, and Hollywood Notebook. A darkly vibrant and daring memoir, Ortiz's Excavation (Northwestern University Press) challenged the standard telling of abuse narratives when first published in 2014; over a decade later, it remains deeply prescient. Set in Los Angeles's San Fernando Valley in the late 1980s, the narrative follows the spiraling entanglement between Ortiz and her eighth-grade English teacher as she becomes both victim to and participant in a simultaneously predatorial and impassioned relationship. Dubbed a "dreamoir," Bruja (Northwestern) is a bold and harrowing journey through the dream worlds of Ortiz. Sister memoir to Hollywood Notebook, it catalogs the happenings of the night: strange visions of the past warped by present-day inklings; animals running loose, never where they should be; familiar nature and architecture made malleable and new. A daylight traipse through early-aughts Los Angeles, Hollywood Notebook (Northwestern) encapsulates the powerful feelings and hopeful futures of twentysomething Ortiz. In this boundary-defying sister memoir to Bruja, Ortiz navigates internal maps as she traverses external palm-treed streets, moving through her youthful twenties and into the pensiveness of her thirties. Ortiz will be joined in conversation by Emilly Prado, author of Funeral for Flaca.

Buy the books: https://www.powells.com/events/wendy-c-ortiz-in-conversation-with-emilly-prado-7-30-25

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• Next Wednesday, 9th July, 07:00 pm, Powell's Presents: Shoshana von Blanckensee in Conversation With Kimberly King Parsons in Portland

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