What LA Has Taught Me About Love ❤️🩹✨
my thoughts on community, solidarity, & care - welcome back to the Slush Pile!
I didn’t expect Issue 41, the first issue of The Slush Pile of 2025, to find me here, caught in the middle of this moment in history. As Israel and Palestine have reached a tentative ceasefire, Los Angeles, historically based on Tongva and Chumash land, continues to burn from wildfires. There is so much burning of the world, so much flame and blaze, ash and smoke, that it’s been - metaphorically and literally - a little harder to breathe these days. Funny how the metaphor of an uncontrollable fire works so well for life, doesn’t it?
As a life-long resident of this beautiful, confusing, complicated place I’ve called home since birth, I’ve done my best to stay safe while stepping up for my community in my own small ways. I’ve donated to GoFundMe’s and mutual aid calls, donated to larger organizations doing incredible, often life-risking work on the ground, dropped off supplies and necessary donations to orgs and community members who’ve been organizing donation drives, shared resources on social media, facilitated donations from friends out-of-state. I’ve kept my little free library restocked and shipped out books to others who might need some light respite right now from the uncertain conditions the fires have single-handedly created.
Also because of the fires, my library will be unusable for the next few weeks until a thorough analysis of the building can be conducted and it can be declared safe to enter again since it’s right in the middle of Altadena, right on Christmas Tree Lane for folks who would know. In the meantime, all of the staff are helping out during the week at a camp for children and teens who’ve been affected by the fires, sponsored and organized by the L.A. County Parks and Rec office.
Needless to say, I’ve been busy, though I share none of this to brag or be proud or make a tragedy about me and what I’ve been doing. On the contrary, I’m writing this newsletter because the people I’ve met over the past week, the collective action and organizing I’ve seen, the comradery and support and solidarity I’ve witnessed, has been nothing short of inspiring. Nothing short of a miracle. Nothing less than the greatest, most selfless act of love, and even as someone who has lived here all my life, there’s so much I have left to learn of it, to appreciate it and be a part of it.
I’ve seen friends and mutuals organize full donation drives out of nothing, gift card and donation chains/matching. I’ve seen them house one another. I’ve seen folks rally together to clean up debris left by the fires and drop off food and supplies and pass out masks and check in on one another and accept all of the not-okayness that all of us are simultaneously feeling at once. This place is full of the love that I’ve chased and searched for all my life, only to discover that it was here all along where I left it.
Like most teenagers, all I wanted to do at sixteen was leave California and make a new life somewhere else. I was bored and hated it here and thought the answer was on the complete opposite end of the country. Then I went to a different continent entirely, only to wind up here again and I’m only now realizing how good it’s been this whole time, I just needed a bit of perspective to see it. This is the place where I met the love of my life, the first person to show me just how beautiful Los Angeles could be beneath the concrete, while acknowledging that it once went by a different name and was cared for by different people and looked very different and even more perfect than this. This is where I’ve made the most fierce friends and meaningful memories, eaten the best version of the food of my culture outside of the country it comes from.
This is where all the love I’ve ever felt, the kind that lasts, lives. This is a community that takes care of each other, watches out for each other, protects each other without conditions or prerequisites. And in an age where our government abandons more than serves us, we need that more than ever. We need each other more than ever. We are the key to each other’s survival and the catalyst that has brought this love back into being. And I know now that we can’t rebuild our home alone. Instead, we’ll do it like we’ve done everything else up until this point: together.
notes from the writer’s desk ✍️
my favorite recently pub’d pieces:
updates:
⭐️OPEN FOR SUBMISSIONS!⭐️ My friend Paula Macena and I are co-editing a zine anthology dedicated to the people of Los Angeles! All proceeds from the zine will go towards the Anti-Recidivism Coalition, which supports incarcerated fire crews through scholarships, training, certification, and job acquisition upon release, with the ultimate goal of ending mass incarceration across California. We are currently accepting creative writing and visual art until January 26, so please go submit y’all!! Read the details and submit here!
⭐️AVAILABLE FOR PREORDER!⭐️ I’m so excited to announce especially to my subscribers that my debut children’s book, Queer Latine Heroes, is now available for preorder!! The book spotlights past and present queer heroes from Latin America and the U.S. and is forthcoming from Jessica Kingsley Publishers on September 18, 2025. Preorder on Amazon or Barnes and Noble!
⭐️UPCOMING WORKSHOPS!⭐️ I have three (yes, three!) upcoming in-person workshops throughout LA including this Sunday at 3pm at Matilija Lending Library in El Monte, January 23 at 6pm at Midnight Books LA, and February 2 at 3pm at the Pop-Hop in Glendale. For full event details and ticket links, please visit my events page here!
⭐️WATCH MY TEDXTALK!⭐️ I’m thrilled to share that my TEDx talk, “The Power of Stories in Representing Our World” is now LIVE on YouTube! It would mean the world to me if you could watch, like, comment, and share with your classrooms, group chats, and everyone you know. Thank you for your support! Watch the talk here!
resources:
Looking for book recommendations? Check out my Bookstagram and TikTok to keep up with what I’m reading and loving right now! On TikTok, you’ll also get more snippets of my everyday writing life and lifestyle/fashion content. See you there!
other stories i’m loving 📖
currently reading:
A Body Made of Glass by Caroline Crampton
currently watching:
St. Denis Medical, S1
currently listening to:
“Another Life” by SZA
all my love,
sofía xx