Low Writing at El Chante: Free Community Writing Workshop

Low Writing at El Chante: Free Community Writing Workshop Low writing is a writing circle for the community. It's free, open to everybody, and inclusive.

Low Writing was born from a meeting of minds between Bianca Encinas, myself (Manuel González), Joseluis, and Richard “Dickie” Sawtelle. gathered in sacred intention to create a space where Chicanos and Nuevomexicanos could speak their truths, write their wounds into wonder, and perform their lived experiences beneath ancestral stars. It was Dickie, Old Town’s own son and co-founder of the Black Be

rets, who marched alongside Civil Rights leaders in Washington D.C. and organized across Black, Brown, Native, and Asian Pacific Islander communities, who first summoned us together. Low Writing was never just a workshop; it was a resurrection of voice, a place for radical storytelling and collective healing, where silence gave way to song. Ten years later, we also honor the birth of the Librotraficante Library at El Chante: Casa de Cultura, a flame lit in resistance to Arizona’s 2012 ban on ethnic studies. Inspired by Tony Diaz’s original library in Tucson, we partnered with Los Jardines Instituto to establish the second Librotraficante Library in Albuquerque, with locations in the South Valley and downtown. These libraries became altars of defiance, where banned books breathe and revolutionary knowledge is passed to the next generation. Across the Southwest, others have followed suit, building sacred spaces where our stories remain free, unbroken, and unforgettable.

04/15/2026
This was our Altar
04/13/2026

This was our Altar

Thank you to each and everyone of you who joined us today for our workshop. And for those who couldn’t make it here’s a ...
04/13/2026

Thank you to each and everyone of you who joined us today for our workshop. And for those who couldn’t make it here’s a link to the prompt.

Tips are never required but always appreciated PAYPAL: [email protected] VENMO: LOW WRITING MEDICINE WORKSHOP HANDOUT WHAT WE ARE DOING By the end of this workshop, you will have: Objects that represent moments you can point to where they come from what you carry that isn’t just ...

Please vote for El Chante: Casa de Cultura LLC This is home. El Chante is where our community comes to remember who we...
04/02/2026

Please vote for El Chante: Casa de Cultura LLC This is home. El Chante is where our community comes to remember who we are rooted in truth, culture, and spirit. This is where our artists create from lived experience. Where poetry is felt. Where writing becomes a release. A reckoning. A return. We gather here for workshops, for ceremony, for conversation that actually means something. We show up for each other. We hold space for healing. We tell our stories out loud so they stop living quietly inside us. This is a place where authenticity is required. Where we celebrate each other in truth. In growth. In the courage it takes to be seen. El Chante is where we become better versions of ourselves together. Where art becomes medicine. Where community becomes family. If you believe in spaces that uplift, that heal, that give our people a voice, then please support El Chante Casa de Cultura and vote. This matters.We matter. And this space is worth fighting for.

Address

804 Park Avenue SW
Albuquerque, NM

Opening Hours

6pm - 9pm

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