Please join Black Mountain Institute for a panel discussion that seeks to demystify the publishing process, with three writers whose journeys to their first book were vastly different. Our panel is made up of current Shearing Fellow Edgar Gomez, author of High Risk Homosexual, Ly Tran, author of House of Sticks, and TBD. Moderated by writer Ucheoma Onwutuebe, the panel will also take questions from the audience.

Edgar Gomez (all pronouns) is a Florida-born writer with roots in Nicaragua and Puerto Rico. A graduate of University of California, Riverside’s MFA program, their words have appeared in Poets & Writers, Narratively, Catapult, Lithub, The Rumpus, and elsewhere online and in print. Their memoir, High-Risk Homosexual, was called a “breath of fresh air” by The New York Times, named a Best Book of 2022 by Publisher’s Weekly, Buzzfeed, and Electric Literature, and received a 2023 Stonewall Honor Award. Their second book, a memoir about money, Florida, and surviving under capitalism titled Alligator Tears, will be out in 2025 from Crown. They live in New York and Puerto Rico. Find them across social media @OtroEdgarGomez. 

Ly Tran is the award-winning author of House of Sticks, a recipient of the NYC Book Awards Hornblower Award and named one of Vogue and NPR’s Best Books of the Year. She has received fellowships from MacDowell, Art Omi, Yaddo, and Millay Arts. House of Sticks is her first book.

Talia Kolluri is a mixed South Asian American writer from Northern California. Her debut collection of short stories, What We Fed to the Manticore (Tin House 2022), was a finalist for the 2023 Carol Shields Prize for Fiction and the 2023 Northern California Book Award for Fiction, was longlisted for the 2023 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction, the 2023 Aspen Words Literary Prize, and the 2023 Pen/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Short Story Collection, and was selected as a 2023 ALA RUSA Notable Book. Her short fiction has been published in Ecotone, Southern Humanities Review, The Common, One Story, Orion, and others.

A lifelong Californian, Talia lives in the Central Valley with her husband, and two cats.

Questions? Please email blackmountaininstitute@unlv.edu or call (702) 895-5542.