Welcome to our Spring season! The Florida Center for the Literary Arts champions reading and writing by creating programs that introduce you to new books and to pathways you can take if you want to write your own.

Kao Kalia Yang and Benjamin S. Grossman are two of our visiting writers this spring. Yang’s moving memoir about life as a Hmong American has been called “powerful, heartbreaking and unforgettable.” Grossberg’s poems have been praised widely for their “lyrical substance” and “historical reach.”

Our reading initiatives, First Year in College and the African-American Read-in, take place at the College, but we invite you all to read the books we are recommending for these programs. They are perfect for book clubs. Don’t have a book club? Start one! We’ll be happy to provide you with reading guides for each of the titles – Reaching Up For Manhood, The Bluest Eye and Fahrenheit 451.

The writers among you can look forward to the Writers Institute in May, when acclaimed authors and writing teachers will teach all aspects of the craft, from short story and plot, to poetry, memoir, investigative techniques and more. And of course you’ll get the scoop on publishing from our guest agents and editors.

We are also bringing back another community favorite – Rebambaramba! – a night when writers, performers, musicians and other creators present original work in Spanish.

Make sure to check back periodically. We are researching ways to implement a project to gather the stories of immigrants and investigate issues of displacement.

I look forward to sharing our season with you!

Alina Interián
Executive Director
Florida Center for the Literary Arts at Miami Dade College
alina.interian@mdc.edu