With lots of love, I share some good news. I know it’s tough all around right now. I, too, feel it and am doing my best to make it a little better day by day, moment by moment, which, in reality, is everything and all that matters. To create this article, we shared lots of love and some laughs, too 🙂 Thank you Ava Cohen and Melvin Wong for some real writing and photos:

“Benjamin Bac Sierra, author of Pura Neta and City College professor, holds up his novel and stands on the sidewalk of Frida Kahlo Way on Ocean campus. Bac Sierra argues in the book that words are merely “…spider symbols. They are not true….Once you whisper a word, it is not truth anymore. Why? Because it is a symbol, it is a representation [of the truth].” San Francisco, CA. Jan. 29, 2021. Photo by Melvin Wong/The Guardsman.”

From Ava Cohen: Pura Neta, as a whole, seems to be based on love. In the book, Cartoon realizes what really motivates him to write his poetry is amor; amor for his community, amor for his homeys, amor for all the people he meets along his journey.” And:

“Holding up his copy of Pura Neta at the Forum Magazine’s reading of his book, Bac Sierra said, “I would hope that someone can look at this and be able to enrich themselves. And you know, maybe for Chicanos, Latinos, that they’ll be able to see this, and maybe build on their identity, of what it means to be, especially if you’re from an urban varrio, and especially from a vida loca, a crazy life kind of background.”

Read the entire article here: http://theguardsman.com/2_culture_pura-neta_cohen/

If you would like to understand more about my philosophies regarding writing, please click this link to read my series on “Why Write?” https://todobododown.com/why-write-a-seven-lesson-seminar/

I write what I live, and I live what I write.

If you need me, hit me up.