Latina Sitcom Writer to Give Talk at WSU

PULLMAN, Wash. — Michele Serros, award-winning poet and author of “How to be a Chicana Role Model” and “Chicana Falsa,” will give a presentation at 5 p.m. Friday, Nov. 5 in Washington State University’s Kimbrough Concert Hall, Room 101. Sale of Serros’ books will follow the presentation.

Part of the Comparative Ethnic Studies Speaker Series, Serros’ presentation will include a slide show and talk about her experiences as a staff writer for the ABC sitcom, “The George Lopez Show.” She will also conduct a workshop with Latino/a High School Students Nov. 6 in conjunction with the Fifth Annual Children of Aztlán Sharing Higher Education Youth Conference. The conference program is designed to provide recruitment-oriented higher education experiences for Chicana/o Latina/o youth high school students.

As a road poet, Serros toured nationally with Lollapalooza, reading her work to stadium crowds of more than 25,000 people. Her spoken-word CD was released by Mercury Records. She was selected by the Getty Research Institute and the Poetry Society of America to have her poetry placed on MTA buses throughout Los Angeles County. Serros has been a featured contributor for the Los Angeles Times’ children’s fiction section and is a regular commentator for National Public Radio’s “Morning Edition” and “All Things Considered.”

Serros was still a student at Santa Monica City College in California when her first book of poetry and short stories, “Chicana Falsa and other stories of Death, Identity and Oxnard” was published in 2000 by Riverhead Books and immediately reached the Los Angeles Times bestseller list. She was subsequently named by Newsweek as “one of the top young women to watch for in the new century.”

Serros currently lives in New York City, is writing a young adult novel tentatively titled “Notes for a Medium Brown Girl” and speaks at high schools, correctional facilities and universities across the country.