“Margaret Elysia Garcia’s is a hauntingly beautiful new voice in American literature. These stories…come together with a kind of magic leaving me inspired and oddly elated.”
— Ariel Gore
"The emo pocha de Maupassant of Southern California." GREAT writing, pacing, humor, and style.
—Gustavo Arellano
Margaret Elysia Garcia is the author of Iconistas, a poetry chapbook of resistance inspired by the Mexican Revolutionary women (2025). Together with Dani Burlison, she’s the co-editor of the anthology Red Flag Warning: Mutual Aid and Survival in California’s Fire Country by AK Press. She’s the author of the forthcoming Chicana Noir and Other Stories to be published by El Martillo Press in October 2025.
Her collection of short stories, Graft, was published by the now defunct Tolsun Books (2022), the poetry collection the daughterland was published by El Martillo Press (2023), and the poetry memoir chapbook Burn Scars chronicling the Dixie Fire and its aftermath, was published by Lit Kit Collective ( 2022).
Author City: Orange County, CA USA
Upcoming Event
Sunday, August 24, The Book Jewel, 2 pm
Plumas County Tour: August 29-31: Aug 29th, Greenville High School, 4:30 pm. Aug 30th, Kismet Books, Chester, 11 am. Aug 31st, Quincy, 2 pm.
Graft
"Graft is a rich and weighted collection that paints an intimate picture of family, community, and the self. Garcia’s command of the line between incisive and brooding is an exquisite textural experience. In exploring the regions of Los Angeles and Orange County, we traipse between geographical maps and internal ones. We are reminded in Graft that in the depths of our sadness, there is an ache that becomes a longing, and in longing, there is always a tomorrow. These are stories of time, place, and the profoundness of our feelings; the ones we live in, and the ones that live in us.”
— Morgan Christie
“Garcia has an exquisite sense of place, of class, of mood— that is utterly transporting. Graft is for the sad girls who "live in all the places that no longer exist, with the ghosts of people longer gone." Even if you don't count yourself among them, Graft will take you there."
-Susie Bright
More News, Events, and More
Plumas Arts - Conversations in the Gallery
Interview with Will Lombardi on the 2022 release of Burn Scars. YouTube running time 18 mins.
Article & Media Archives
Links to articles, interviews, and more.