Latinx Author Panel featuring Tomas Moniz with Max Bidasha & Aisha Rivera

Join us for a special event with Tomas Moniz, author of The King of Aloe Vera, in conversation with Max Bidasha and Aisha Rivera. This event is free, but we appreciate your RSVP below so we can plan for your attendance.

An elderly man has just a month to leave his home. A young woman from his neighborhood is soon to be unhoused. Slowly but surely, the two form an unlikely yet transformational friendship in this warm and funny novel about love and community.

Seventy-five-year-old Rey has lived on the same block in San Francisco’s Mission District for most of his life, watching his city transform. A widower for ten years, he spends most of his time volunteering at the library, but by the end of the month, Rey must move into a senior retirement and leave his neighborhood behind. It’s at the library during one of his last shifts where he meets Q, on probation, post breakup with her girlfriend and dealing with a troubled family. As Rey tries to decide what to do with the rest of his days, literally counting them off and cutting his remaining ties, Q begins to insert herself into his world in a way that he can't deny.

A story about Latinx identity, intergenerational friendship, and chosen family, Moniz’s novel takes us on a journey through senior dance classes, illegal bike trips over the Bay Bridge, and fair housing rallies. And as the days tick down, Rey and Q find themselves leaning on each other for answers on how to find community and purpose, make amends, and process grief.

For readers of Steven Rowley and Claire Jimenez, equally funny and tender, The King of Aloe Vera delights in how we choose to live, and live out, our lives.

TOMAS MONIZ is a latinx writer living in East Oakland, CA. His debut novel, Big Familia, was a finalist for the 2020 PEN/Hemingway and the LAMBDA. His second novel, All Friends Are Necessary, won the 2024 California Golden Poppy Award. His new novel, The King of Aloe Vera, will be published September 2026 from Algonquin Books. He teaches at Berkeley City College, the Antioch MFA program and St. Mary’s College. He has stuff on the internet but loves penpals: PO Box 3555, Berkeley CA 94703. He promises to write back.

Max Bidasha is a Two-Spirit, Indigenous, Mexican, Punjabi, playwright, poet, and activist. His plays focus on social justice issues and cultural nuances. He began writing while undergoing intense chemotherapy to treat stage IV cancer after being told he had one year to live. His plays include, STAGES, Missing Red Girls, The Kids are NOT Alright, and Gramacita. His first collection of poetry, The Pros and Cons of Dying, is out now. Gramacita, the novella, is his first creative non-fiction project. He lives with his boyfriend Armando and his happy dog, Momo in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Aisha Rivera is the current Napa County Poet Laureate (2023 - Present) an actor, visual artist, and playwright from Napa, CA. Their poetry can be found in the poetry anthologies "Poetics without Borders" and "Latinas, Gender, Race, and Class…”. They established Napa's first Poetry Open Mic at Napa Bookmine, which has now moved to Napa Valley Education Foundation near the Oxbow. The Open Mic lands on the last Friday of every month from 6:00 PM - 7:30 PM. Aisha also advocates for the power of poetry through education, community programming, performance, and more. Aisha believes in the power poetry holds to build community, create social change, and express the wonder rollercoaster that is the human experience.