Writer, performer, and visual artist Baruch Porras-Hernandez will collaborate with Movimiento de Arte y Cultura Latino Americana, Inc. (MACLA) to develop an anthology composed of five distinct superhero short stories written by Bay Area queer and Latinx writers, and a 45-minute interactive storytelling and live theater piece based on the stories. Performances will take place in MACLA’s Castellano Playhouse and at local LGBTQ centers and spoken word poetry festivals. One of the five superhero short stories will be created in collaboration with LGBTQ youth in San Jose. Each story will be illustrated by local comic book artists. The resulting collection is intended to offer comedic relief and redraw the boundaries of the comic book genre by providing a space where Latino and LGBTQ superheroes can shed sidekick roles and become protagonists.
Baruch Porras-Hernandez is a multi-genre author and artist whose range includes writing speculative fiction. He has received two Lambda Literary fellowships and a San Francisco Arts Commission individual artist grant, has published in several anthologies, and regularly organizes literary shows and events in the Bay Area. His collaborating organization, MACLA, is an inclusive contemporary arts space grounded in the Chicano/Latino experience that incubates new performance, literary, and visual art in order to engage people in civic dialogue and community transformation. Each year it reaches more than 35,000 people in its programming.