Culture Makers

Join us Thursday, March 19, from 6:30–8:00 pm at The New Parkway Theater for a vibrant evening with writers whose stories resonate far beyond the page. The Oaklandside’s Culture Makers brings together powerful voices to explore creativity, community, and how lived experience fuels unforgettable storytelling.

The Oaklandside arts and community reporter, Azucena Rasilla, will be in conversation with Jasmine Guillory, New York Times bestselling romance author; Carolina Ixta, acclaimed author of Shut Up, This Is Serious; and William Gee Wong, journalist and author of Sons of Chinatown: A Memoir Rooted in China and America. The evening will also feature poetry by Myra Estrada.

Together, they’ll reflect on their creative journeys, what inspires their work, and how place, identity, and community shape the stories they tell. Stay after the conversation to meet the authors, get your books signed, and connect with fellow readers. Books will be available for purchase on site courtesy of Nomadic Bookshop.

Come be part of an evening that celebrates storytelling in all its forms—and the communities that make those stories possible.

About our guests:

Jasmine Guillory is the New York Times bestselling author of six romance novels, including The Wedding Date, The Proposal, and While We Were Dating. Her work has appeared in O, The Oprah Magazine, Cosmopolitan, Bon Appetit, and Time. She lives in Oakland, California.

Carolina Ixta is a writer from Oakland, California. A daughter of Mexican
immigrants, she received her B.A. in Creative Writing and Spanish Language and
Literature at the University of California, Santa Cruz and obtained her Master's degree
in Education at the University of California, Berkeley. Her critically acclaimed debut
novel, Shut Up, This Is Serious, was a Morris Award finalist, an LA Times Book Prize
finalist, and the winner of the Pura Belpré Award. Within the first year of its
publication, Parade Magazine named the novel as one of the 101 best young adult
novels of all time. Her sophomore novel, Few Blue Skies, is forthcoming from
HarperCollins on February 3rd of 2026.

William Gee Wong is a print journalist, author, and amateur historian. A native of Oakland, California's Chinatown, William received his B.A. at the University of California at Berkeley and M.S. at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. His print journalism career was spent at The Wall Street Journal (1970-1979) and The Oakland Tribune (1979-1996). He also worked for The San Francisco Chronicle and the San Francisco News Call Bulletin, and has written for the San Francisco Examiner, East West: the Chinese American Journal, and Asian Week, among other publications. In the mid-1960s, William served in the Peace Corps in the Philippines. From 1995-1996, he was a regional commentator for The News Hour with Jim Lehrer on PBS. William is the author of Sons of Chinatown: A Memoir Rooted in China and America, Yellow Journalist: Dispatches from Asian America (Temple University Press, 2001), Images of America: Oakland's Chinatown (Arcadia Publishing Co., 2004), and co-author of Images of America: Angel Island (Arcadia Publishing Co., 2007).

Myra Estrada is an African American and Mexican female teaching artist and poet. She is the 2021 Oakland Youth Poet Laureate and has since then performed across the Bay Area in spaces such as the DeYoung Museum, Ella Baker Center, Youth Speaks, and The Oakland Public Library. She has had the honor to share space with community legends such as Black Panther Chairwoman, Elaine Brown and Co-Founder of the BLM Movement, Alicia Garza. Myra is currently studying Sociology at the University of California, Berkeley gaining knowledge on the world that surrounds her. She hopes to become a representation of the revolutionists who have walked these sacred grounds before her and the revolutionary brown babies that will come after her.

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