Genre Fiction and Race - with Naomi Hirahara (Crown City), Pedro Ininguez (Fever Dreams of a Parasite) and David A. Romero (The Enemy Sleeps)
Join us as three novelists with new releases discuss how mystery, horror, and science fiction can be used to celebrate cultures and unearth repressed histories. We all love a good page-turner, why not support books that increase BIPOC representation and inspire us to investigate the world around us that are as entertaining as Hollywood movies?
Naomi Hirahara
Naomi Hirahara is an Edgar Award-winning author of multiple traditional mystery series and noir short stories. Her Mas Arai mysteries, which have been published in Japanese, Korean and French, feature an Altadena gardener and Hiroshima survivor who solves crimes. Her first historical mystery is Clark and Division, which follows a Japanese American family’s move to Chicago in 1944 after being released from a California wartime detention center. The second Japantown Mystery novel, Evergreen, set in 1946 Boyle Heights and Little Tokyo, was released in paperback last year. A former journalist with The Rafu Shimpo newspaper, Naomi has also written numerous non-fiction history books and curated exhibitions. She has also written a middle-grade novel, 1001 Cranes. Her next Japantown Mystery novel, CROWN CITY, which takes place in 1903 Pasadena, will be released in February 2026.
Pedro Iniguez
Pedro Iniguez is a Mexican-American Bram Stoker, Elgin, and Dwarf Stars Award-winning science fiction and horror writer from Los Angeles, California. He is the author of Mexicans on the Moon: Speculative Poetry from a Possible Future, Fever Dreams of a Parasite, Echoes and Embers: Speculative Stories, and The Fib, his debut picture book, among others. Apart from leading writing workshops and speaking at several colleges, he has also been a sensitivity reader and has ghostwritten for award-winning apps and online clients. His horror poetry collection, The Build-A-Monster Workshop will be released in May from Raw Dog Screaming Press.
David A. Romero
David A. Romero is a Mexican-American poet, novelist, and publisher from Diamond Bar, CA. He is the co-founder and editor-in-chief of El Martillo Press. Romero is the author of the novel The Enemy Sleeps (El Martillo Press, 2026) and the books of poetry My Name Is Romero (FlowerSong Press, 2020) and Diamond Bars 2 (Moon Tide Press, 2024). Romero has received honorariums from nearly a hundred colleges and universities in thirty-four different states in the USA and has also performed live in Mexico, Italy, and France. His poem, "You Were Born a Tree" was sent to the Moon by NASA in 2025 as part of the Lunar Codex.
Panel Moderated by Matt Sedillo
Matt Sedillo has been described as the "best political poet in America" by investigative reporter Greg Palast as well as "the poet laureate of the struggle" by historian Paul Ortiz. His work has drawn comparisons in print to Bertolt Brecht, Roque Dalton, Amiri Baraka, Allen Ginsberg, Carl Sandburg, and various other legends of the past. Sedillo was the recipient of the 2017 Joe Hill Labor Poetry award, a panelist at the 2020 Texas book festival, a participant in the 2012 San Francisco International Poetry Festival, the 2022 Elba Poetry Festival, the 2023 Guadalajara Book Fair, 2024 Medellin Poetry Festival, the 2025 Hurlingham Poetry Festival, the 2025 Ghazipur Literary Festival, the 2025 Guadalajara Book Fair and the recipient of the 2022 Dante's Laurel. Sedillo has appeared on CSPAN and has been featured in the New York Times, Chicago Tribune, The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and Axios, among many other media outlets and publications. Sedillo has spoken at Casa de las Americas in Havana, Cuba, the National Library of Chile in Santiago Chile, Estadio Nacional in Santiago, Chile, at numerous conferences and forums such as the Association of Writers and Writing Programs, the National Conference on Race & Ethnicity in American Higher Education, the National Association of Chicana/Chicano Studies, the Left Forum, the US Social Forum, and at over a hundred universities and colleges, including UNAM, the University of Cambridge, UC Berkeley, Stanford, the University of Napoli among many others.