Kale Soup for the Soul, a literary group of Portuguese-American writers and poets, and Portuguese Heritage Publications of California, an all volunteer, non-profit community publisher, held a literary reading this past Sunday, January 19th., at the Pacific Hotel – History San Jose Park.

The cast of Portuguese-American poets and writers delighted the audience that filled to capacity the Renzel room of the Pacific Hotel. We would like to take the opportunity to thank these writers and poets, who came from far away to share their works with the Portuguese community of the San Francisco Bay Area:

Sam Pereira, from Los Banos, California. His books include: The Marriage of the Portuguese, Brittle Water, A Cafe in Boca. His most recent book, Dusting on Sunday (Tebot Bach) was released in December 2012.

Ahmed Al-Sheikh, born in Saudi Arabia, to a Saudi father and an immigrant Portuguese mother from Corvo, Azores. His first novel, Lunen: Triblood, is self published in several ebook formats as well as print.

Darrel Kastin, his books include the novel The Undiscovered Island, short story collection, The Conjurer & Other Azorean Tales, with two new novels: A Tale of the Azorean Nights, and Inês de Castro: Queen after Death forthcoming. He is also a musician and composer.

Millicent Borges Accardi, author of three poetry books: Injuring Eternity, Woman on a Shaky Bridge, and Only More So (forthcoming). She lives in Los Angeles.
Anthony Barcellos, grew up speaking Portuguese on his grandfather’s dairy farm in Porterville, and is the author of the novel Land of Milk and Money (Tagus Press). He is a math professor at American River College in Sacramento.

 Linette Escobar is a Portuguese-American Poet whose work has appeared in Babilonia, Sparkle and Blink, and the Santa Clara Review. She is working on a memoir about her experiences working in Thailand as a tsunami volunteer. She lives in San Francisco.

Tony John Roma, immigrated to California in utero from the island of São Jorge. He grew up in San Leandro among the last great wave of Portuguese immigrants to the area. He graduated from Sacramento State, where he was a recipient of the Bazzanella Literary Award for short fiction.

The poets shared from their published works, pieces at times pungent, painful, thought provoking and hard hitting; others mired in social sarcasm and humor but all full of that goose bump lyricism that only a sophisticated sensibility is capable of creating and poetic mastery enables its sharing.

The writers read from their works of fiction and novel, keeping the audience on the edge of their seats throughout the entire event. At the end of the presentations, the authors answered questions from the audience and signed their books.
Following the readings, all participants partook of an abundant service of appetizers and wine, while mingling and socializing with friends and acquaintances. The event was open to the public, free of charge.

Portuguese Heritage Publications of California, an all volunteer, non-profit community publisher is thankful for the opportunity to introduce to the Portuguese community these Portuguese-American writers, well know by American readers, but not necessarily so by the Portuguese-American community at large.
Those interested in acquiring the literary works of these authors may do so at Amazon.com.