M.M. OLIVAS at Books Inc. Alameda

Join Books Inc. Alameda as we celebrate the debut of local author, M. M. Olivas reading and signing copies of their novel, Sundown in San Ojuela, a gothic spaghetti western that follows Aztec Vampires in California’s Inland Empire.

When the death of her aunt brings Liz Remolina back to San Ojuela, the prospect fills her with dread. The isolated desert town was the site of a harrowing childhood accident that left her clairvoyant, the companion of wraiths and ghosts. Yet it may also hold the secret to making peace with a dark family history and a complicated personal and cultural identity.

Setting out on the train with her younger sister Mary in tow, she soon finds herself hemmed in by a desolate landscape where monsters and ancient gods stalk the night. She’s relieved at first to find that her childhood best friend Julian still lives in San Ojuela, but soon realizes that he too is changed. Haunted.

Yet she’ll have no other choice than to seek out his help as the darkness closes in.

“This book is both luminous and so, so dark.”

—Cynthia Gomez, author of The Nightmare Box and Other Stories

M. M. Olivas is an alumna of the 2022 Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers’ Workshop and the 2023 Under the Volcano Writers Residency. Her short fiction has appeared Uncanny Magazine, Weird Horror Magazine, Apex, and Bourbon Penn. Her short story “The Prince of Oakland” was featured in Tenebrous Press’ Brave New Weird Anthology for 2024.

Olivas also made the longlist for the 2021 Samuel R. Delany Fellowship and was a recipient of the 2022 George R. R. Martin Sense of Wonder Scholarship.

As a trans, first-generation Chicana horror writer, Olivas explores the intersection of queer and diasporic experiences in her fiction. She currently resides in the San Francisco Bay Area, earning her MFA in Creative Writing at San Jose State University and collecting transforming robots.

Host or Publisher Books Inc.