Date: Tuesday, July 9, 2024
Time: 7:00 pm PST
Where: The Artist Lab at Prospect Theater Project, 1214 K Street, Modesto CA 95354

Open mic following featured poets (3 min per poet); sign up at the event. 

Hosted by Gillian Wegener

Monolin “Manny” Moreno 

Monolin “Manny” Moreno is of Yaqui-Tarascan descent and an Enrolled Member of the State Recognized Tribal Group of the Texas Band of Yaqui Indians. His five published works include poetry collections, memoirs, and a remembrance of Native elders Harry Jack and Barry Beaver Turner. 

His poems have appeared in Song of the San Joaquin, Hincha Poesia and Whispering Thunder.  He was a Pushcart Prize nominee in 2011 and was Poet of the Month for Moon Tide Press in 2012.

Moreno is a Sundancer and member of the Black Wolf Honor Society  Gourd Clan and Native American Church. Manny was brought out and introduced as a community elder at a pow-wow in Stockton CA, and he has served the Native community as a spiritual leader. 

Manny’s newest book, Santa Nella Blues, was just published earlier this year and was created with support and funding from The Heartland Creative Corps, California Arts Council, Merced United Way, and the Merced County Art Council.

Lillian Vallee

Lillian Vallee is an award-winning translator, writer and scholar who served an apprenticeship with the Nobel-Prize winning Polish poet Czeslaw Milosz. Her poems appear in Collision I, II & III and More Than Soil, More Than Sky: The Modesto Poets. She was one of the featured poets in Highway 99, A 

Literary Journey through California’s Great Central Valley and is the author of three chapbooks—Vision at Orestimba, Erratics, and handful of snow. 

Her popular monthly column in Stanislaus Connections, “Rivers of Birds, Forests of Tule: Central Valley Nature and Culture in Season,” was published in 2019  as a collection of the same name. Lillian is professor emeritus in English at MJC.