Raquel Gutierrez's "Brown Neon"

Published: July 29, 2022, noon

The writer and critic Raquel Guti\xe9rrez joins Kate Wolf and Eric Newman to speak about their debut collection of essays, Brown Neon. The book follows Guti\xe9rrez\u2019s peregrinations across time and place, particularly the West and Southwest, from their upbringing and youth in 1990s Los Angeles as a member of post punk bands and inside of a queer community of color, to their years as an arts administrator in Northern California, as well as their more recent experiences in the borderlands of Arizona and Texas. With an approach that is both intimate \u2014 many of the artists they write about are close friends \u2014 and expansive, the book takes on issues of identity, gender, class, ownership, and legacies of violence, with nuance, historical perspective, and rapt attention to place.\n\nAlso, Joseph Osmundson, author of Virology, returns to recommend C. Russell Price's poetry collection oh, you thought this was a date?!