A free, two-day literary festival opens this Saturday at one of Austin's oldest bookstores, bringing together Chicanx, Latinx, and Indigenous writers from across Texas for readings, writing workshops, and independent press meetups. The inaugural Austin Latinx Micro-Book Festival runs August 29-30 at Casa de Resistencia Books in East Austin, with organizers framing the gathering as both a literary celebration and a direct response to a statewide climate of book restrictions.
The festival is hosted by Red Salmon Arts, the nonprofit that operates Casa de Resistencia Books, according to The Austin Chronicle. Founded in 1983, Red Salmon Arts traces its roots to Chicano poet and prisoner-rights advocate raúlrsalinas, who developed his creative voice while incarcerated in federal prisons before returning to Austin to build grassroots community arts spaces, according to Red Salmon Arts. He is remembered as the author of the foundational Chicano Movement poem “A Trip Through the Mind Jail.”
Casa de Resistencia Books itself has operated since 1981 and is recognized as one of Austin's oldest bookstores and the longest-running Latinx-focused bookstore in the U.S. Southwest, per a Facebook post from Mouthfeel Press. The shop moved to its current home at 2000 Thrasher Lane after a doubled rent demand at its former East Cesar Chavez Street location in 2014 threatened its survival, prompting a community fundraising campaign, according to a FundRazr campaign page.
Free Programming Backed by State and City Grants
The Chronicle reports that the festival offers free programming and includes writing workshops alongside independent press opportunities. Lilia Rosas, executive director of Red Salmon Arts, told the paper that “people can do things for free” and that Latinx literature, publishing, and authors are thriving across Texas, per the same account. The inaugural event received public funding through an Elevate Grant from Austin's Arts, Culture, Music and Entertainment division alongside support from the Texas Commission on the Arts, according to Mouthfeel Press.
Organizers modeled the Austin gathering after the 1990s Inter-American Book Fair and Literary Festival hosted by the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center in San Antonio, the Chronicle reports. Austin-based poet Liliana Valenzuela recalled earlier local efforts to gather Latinx, Chicanx, and Native American presses, writers, and organizations, according to the article.
A Pulitzer Winner's Prompt Shapes a Workshop
Among the festival's scheduled sessions is the “Cositas Chismositas: Everyday Objects Spillin' the Tea” writing workshop, set for Sunday, August 30, and led by San Antonio-based performer and writer Barbie Hurtado alongside Violeta Garza. The workshop was inspired by a prompt from Cristina Rivera Garza, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author, the Chronicle notes. Rivera Garza won the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for Memoir or Autobiography for “Liliana's Invincible Summer,” a book examining femicide and systemic violence following her sister's 1990 murder in Mexico, according to the University of Houston. She donated her archive to UT Austin's Benson Latin American Collection in 2025.
Saturday's schedule includes the “Living and Loving Under Empire” workshop, led by Mónica Teresa Ortiz and inspired by the work of June Jordan, per the Chronicle. Ortiz told the paper that the festival brings people together for dialogues not happening in institutions. Event co-organizer and multihyphenate writer Jo Reyes-Boitel said migrant narratives are woefully needed, adding that Texas has removed migrants from physical spaces, according to the same report.
Readings From Two Former Texas Poets Laureate
The festival features readings by Emmy Pérez, Carmen Tafolla, and Houston Poet Laureate Reyes Ramirez, with participants also drawn from the Valley, Houston, San Antonio, and West Texas, the Chronicle reports. Pérez and Tafolla are both former Texas Poets Laureate; Tafolla also served as San Antonio's inaugural poet laureate and recently moderated a January event in San Antonio featuring U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, according to prior Hoodline reporting. Barbie Hurtado said Texas is home to Latinx, bilingual, and queer communities, per the Chronicle.
Organizers Frame the Event Against Statewide Book Fights
The Chronicle describes the Austin Latinx Micro-Book Festival as a two-day celebration of community, connection, creativity, and political defiance, one organizers say provides a space where queer people, immigrants, and Spanish speakers can feel safe. The paper reports that the festival responds to political efforts to silence or minimize immigrant voices amid national and Texas politics that include increasing ICE raids and decreased protections for immigrants.
That framing lands against a broader legal backdrop. A federal judge permanently blocked the vendor book-rating provisions of Texas House Bill 900, known as the READER Act, in October 2025, ruling that compelling booksellers to evaluate titles for sexual content violated the First Amendment, according to Words & Money. Even so, the law's mandate directing state agencies to establish mandatory statewide library collection standards was allowed to take effect in late 2023, per Teach the Vote. Statewide civil rights organizations report that Texas book challenges and restriction efforts have disproportionately targeted titles written by or centering members of historically marginalized groups, including Latinx and LGBTQ+ individuals, according to the Harris County Public Library.
The Austin Latinx Micro-Book Festival appears in the August 28 issue of the Austin Chronicle, ahead of its Saturday-to-Sunday run at Casa de Resistencia Books. Full details on readings, workshop times, and participating writers are available through the bookstore and Red Salmon Arts.
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