“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 Graft, a collection of short stories published by Tolsun Books (2022), the poetry collection the daughterland published by El Martillo Press (2023), and the poetry memoir chapbook Burn Scars. Together with Dani Burlison, she’s the co-editor of the forthcoming anthology Red Flag Warning: Northern Californians Living with Fire to be published by HeyDay Books in 2024.
Margaret's work has been featured in the Akashic Noir Series Santa Cruz Noir, PM Press' All of Me: Stories of Love, Anger, and the Female Body, and Catamaran Literary Reader, among other places. She’s currently editing a second collection of stories, and working on a novel among other projects large and small.
Author City: Orange County, CA USA
Upcoming Events
6th Anniversary Libro Mobile Literary Arts Festival
Sun. March 3rd @ 3:30 PM PST
Downtown Fullerton Plaza, Fullerton, CA
Details at https://www.libromobile.com/events
West End Theatre Comedy Show
Fri. March 15 @ 8 PM PST
Quincy, CA
Appearing as a headliner!
Words & Music Event
Thur. April 11 - time TBA
Quincy, CA
Appearing as a featured artist
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.