On Thursday, October 1, at 6pm, in the Nordic Lounge (E Bldg), the Long Beach City College Puente Program will host author and Puente alumnus Alex Espinoza.

The public and LBCC community are invited to this free event. Light refreshments will be served. Also, thanks to the LBCC Viking Bookstore, copies of Still Water Saints will be available at the event for only $12.00, including tax.

Parking is available for $1 in lot J at Clark Ave. and Carson St., click here to see a map.

Espinoza will read excerpts from his debut novel, Still Water Saints. The story follows the lives of Perla, the owner of a botánica in Agua Mansa, a fictional town in the Inland Empire, and the locals who visit her store.

Barnes & Noble named the novel, which was released simultaneously in English and Spanish, a “Discover Great New Writers” selection for Spring 2007. Sandra Cisneros, author of House on Mango Street and Caramelo, says the book is “as perfect as the beads of a rosary.” The American Library Association’s Booklist publication called Still Water Saints a “magical debut” and Espinoza a “refreshing new writer.”

Born in Tijuana, Mexico, Espinoza is the youngest of eleven children. He grew up in La Puente. In 1991, he moved to the Inland Empire and attended San Bernardino Valley College where he participated in the Puente Program. He earned a BA in Creative Writing at UC Riverside and an MFA at UC Irvine. Currently, he is an Assistant Professor of English at California State University, Fresno.

Puente is a two-semester program designed to increase the number of Latino and other educationally underrepresented students who successfully transfer to a four-year colleges and universities, complete their degrees, and to return to the community as mentors and leaders of future generations. Puente is open to all students.

This event is supported by Poets & Writers, Inc. through a grant it has received from The James Irvine Foundation.