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Dublin and Paris
Text written by Christopher Miguel Flakus and video edited and directed by Christopher Flakus PoetryETrain.
Poetry and Prose Reading Series
Christopher Miguel Flakus: Writer and Professor of Creative Writing, Translator, and poet.
(936)-206-6888
Or
Education
University of Houston 4800 Calhoun Rd, Houston, TX 77004
MFA in Fiction from The University of Houston Creative Writing Program. Graduated May 2022.
University of Houston-Downtown,
One N Main St, Houston, TX
Bachelor of Arts, Degree Awarded May, 2018
Major: English [Creative Writing, Fiction]
St. Thomas University,
3800 Montrose Blvd, Houston, TX
Attended 2005-2006 and an additional semester in 2014
St. Edwards University,
3001 S Congress Ave, Austin, TX 78704
Attended 2007-2010
Lone Star College-Montgomery
3200 College Park Dr, Conroe, TX 77384
Attended 2004-2005, additional semester in 2015 prior to transfer to UHD
Awards and Fellowships
2017 Fabian Worsham Award for Fiction, University of Houston-Downtown
Honorary Diploma for Remote Teaching, Ponencia Intercultural UNAM, Preparatoria 8, Av. Lomas De Plateros S/N, Merced Gómez, Álvaro Obregón, 01600 Ciudad de México, CDMX, México.
2019 Inprint C. Glenn Cambor Fellowship
2022–Sterling Clack-Clack June Fiction Prize for short story, Dead Mall
Dead Mall — Sterling Clack Clack
Institute for World Literature Certificate of Completion Diploma 2021, online due to pandemic
Institute for World Literature Certificate of Completion Diploma 2022, Mainz Germany
2021–Present, Member of the Sancho Panza Literary Society based out of Dublin, though meetings take place in the United States once or twice a year. Normally these are fundraising readings from the New Square/SPLS staff writers along with musical performances between readers. We are centered around “New Square Magazine,” Trinity University’s literary journal. And the Irish-American Novelist Joseph Reynolds is the captain of our noble vessel.
2020 Research Assistantship with Arte Publico Press. Worked as editorial assistant and digital cataloger of a lost Mexican novel, worked directly digitizing its pages and readying them to press.
Editorial Experience
Fiction Editor, The Bayou Review, Department of English, University of Houston-Downtown, 2016-2017
(Began as intern in 2016, promoted to Fiction Editor in 2017. Developed a concept for a special prison issue which gave voice to the voiceless, breaking through iron bars and barbed wire for their stories to reach the hands of hundreds of readers. Collaborated with KPFT Prison Show and the famous activist and ACLU Lifetime Award member Ray Hill, a truly great man, who wrote the foreword).
Contributor, The Hilltop Views, St. Edward’s University, 3001 S. Congress Ave.,
# 964, Austin, TX 78704-6489, 2007
Co-Founder and Co-Editor-in-Chief, Defunkt Magazine, defunktmag.com
February 2019–2022
By February of 2022 Defunkt Magazine’s (https://www.defunktmag.com/) my Co-Editor-in-Chief Miranda Ramirez and I made the joint decision to hand Defunkt over to Diamond Braxton, our fiction editor at the time, who has since done a superb job as Editor-In-Chief. Miranda and I took positions as board members and contributing authors (though we go through the same submission process as anyone else). I recently submitted and had a piece I wrote in Germany this summer accepted. It’s about a demonstration between a neo-nazi group called the Neu Starke Partei and Antifa that I both witnessed and, as such scary situations can escalate, became involved in on Antifa’s side. Both my co-eic and I needed to focus on our novels-in-progress, though she remains more involved than I am with the magazine.
In her case an MFA program had to take priority, and in mine in order to finish my current novel, before which I’d just finished my first novel, which also happened to be my thesis for my MFA Defense.
Defunkt has been handed down to a new generation and rests in the most capable hands. Diamond is doing an amazing job and has final say on all decisions related to the magazine. I wish very dearly that Defunkt will persevere through many epochs, each with its own aesthetic and tuning, its own special blend of staff dedicated to raising the voices of marginalized writers as our mission statement proclaims. So far this seems to be happening and I couldn’t feel prouder to have been part of the founding and running of this amazing magazine.
Research Assistant Fellow, Arte Publico Press, artepublicopress.com
September 2020—September 2021
Responsibilities: I worked as an editor, proofreading and leaving comments on books by Latinx authors such as Jimmy Santiago Baca and also took part in Digital Humanities efforts, logging cases of prejudice and racial violence against Latinx communities into a digital map, searchable by name, time period, or region. A project of immense importance.
Related Experience
Death Bird Poetry Tour: Co-headlined a poetry tour from New Orleans (Club Istanbul) through three dates in Houston, (Bohemeo’s, Write About Now, and La Coqueta) before ending at Deep Vellum Books and Publishers in Dallas, there first post-pandemic featured reading and open-mic. My co-headliner, Thom Bakelas, is a central figure of the current “New Jersey Renaissance,” as it’s begun to be called, of poetry. I’d always admired Thom’s work and I’d put out one chapbook of mine, Hurricanes, on his Between Shadows Press. That’s how our friendship began and through the years we sent each other letters with new chapbooks we’d written, or links to publications of ours online. We planned the tour together with his Between Shadows Press partnering with my own Odessa Collective, which I co-run with Houston poet Rachel Preston. The so-called “Death Bird,” is the Shoe-Billed Stork, a rare and almost extinct creature. Incredibly beautiful with feathers as long as Bowie Knives. It has this enormous beak and eats baby crocodiles. There are only four in The US, and one happens to be in the Dallas Aquarium. After officially finishing our tour at Deep Vellum, we awoke the next day and gave it our own final closing, bowing to, and reading poetry to the Shoe-Billed stork for nearly two hours. I can’t think of another tour like this being organized successfully and seen through to its finish since the 60’s. We were nothing if not a merry band of troubadours. Texas singer-songwriter Josh Brown accompanied us on half the tour, and Kenny Baird at our La Coqueta date on acoustic guitar. Two of the best musicians in town. I’ve always found this helps alleviate “reading fatigue” and gives folks the time to meet each other, get libations, and work up the courage to sign up for an open mic spot. We basically broke even, but the tour’s more than a success if we managed that. We’re already planning our follow up on the East-Coast for next year.
English Instructor: English 1301 Instructor, University of Houston since August 23, 2021. Responsibilities include the creation of syllabi, assignments, grading, and engaging class discussion as well as giving daily writing prompts to familiarize us with the wiring process. Again, these were designed by me to be useful to their first and final essays and how to structure them.
UH Writing Center,
Responsibilities: Worked one-on-one with students from many degrees, from engineering students to scientific research papers and even job applications. We worked by appointment and I felt proud that many returning students asked to work with me specifically.
KPFT 90.1, The Prison Show, 419 Lovett Blvd. Houston, Texas 77006, May 2016-2018
Duties: Volunteer, Cameraman on Facebook Live Stream of show. Prior to joining as a volunteer wrote a blog on The Prison Show in June of 2016 and conducted a video interview with Ray Hill. Later returned as guest speaker on The Prison Show alongside fellow Bayou Review editor Michelle Laird in December of 2017. The support of The Prison Show was instrumental in the publishing of our special prison issue of The Bayou Review which contained creative writing by incarcerated authors, most of whom are serving life sentences. Most recently I appeared on the air reading a short story I’d published in honor of Ray Hill, founder of The Prison Show and (may he rest in peace) a good friend and artistic collaborator of mine. I’m proud I got to know such a character and honored that my story, which proved successful in my opinion because it moved his friends and loved ones enough for them to ask for it to be included on the show. I only hope Ray would be proud of it too.
SIJ Outreach Program, American School Foundation, Bondojito 215, Las Américas, 01120 Álvaro Obregón, CDMX, Mexico, May 2001
Duties: Volunteer, helped deliver 16 tons of food, clothes, and medical supplies over the Sierra Madre Occidental to a remote Tarahumara village, an eighteen-hour drive on an automatic bus, an experience that has left a lasting impression and significantly shaped my written work.
InPrint Workshop Leader: Led a six-week Memoir/Nonfiction workshop from October 10th on. Reading materials included memoirs such as Tara Westover’s Educated, Reynaldo Arenas’ Before Night Falls, and Harry Crews’ Childhood: A Biography of a Place. Apart from these readings we had generative and mnemonic exercises, each challenging ourselves to dig deeply into our own pasts. Easily the most gratifying teaching experience I’ve ever had and one very special group of writers.
Publications
Dumpster Fire Press, “Guns, God, Glory, and Greed,” published two other excerpts from my rogue’s gallery novel:“My Life Among the Outlaw Poets,” in their print anthology. https://www.amazon.com/GUNS-GLORY-GREED-Dumpster-Press/dp/B0BFWLZTW8/ref=sr_1_1?qid=1667335206&refinements=p_27%3ADumpster+Fire+Press&s=books&sr=1-1
New Square Magazine, “My Life Among the Outlaw Poets,” published an excerpt of my new novel, as a standalone short story. August 5th, 2022 https://sanchopanzalit.wixsite.com/newsquare/post/my-life-among-the-outlaw-poets
Defunkt Magazine, Essay, “Special Edition: Haus Mainusch,” August 5th 2022
https://www.defunktmag.com/post/special-feature-haus-mainusch
Poetry E-Train “Texas Poet in Paris 2022” Video Poem, July 12th 2022 Written, filmed, and edited on commission for PoetryETrain.
“Desensitization Tank,” Forthcoming Free Press Print Anthology
“The Jazz Somnambulist” New Square Magazine, Nominated for Pushcart Prize and written up as a “Staff Pick,” Spring 2021 | Volume 3 Issue 2 | Sancho Panza Literary Society (Got a nod from the Pushcart Committee, a personalized letter to the editor of New Square expressing their interest in the story and a promise to be looking closely next year at New Square and particularly my work in it).
“Dead Mall,” Sterling Clack-Clack, Winner of June Fiction Prize 2021
“Hurricanes,” [Chapbook] published by Between Shadows Press.
“Poem for a Train,” Poetry Train: 10th Anniversary Anthology, edited by John D. Wordslinger. https://www.amazon.com/Poetry-Train/e/B08QLL2TVW January, 2020
“Christiana,” Analog Submission Press, (Second print run of previous chapbook, same story, though heavily revised with some key plot changes) December, 2020
“COVID has forced Americans to flee their cities, but I’m not leaving,” Houston Chronicle, Chron.com, August 28, 2020
“5 Things I’m Going to do in Houston Once the Pandemic Ends,” Houston Chronicle, Chron.com, July 27, 2020
“Power of Poetry #101,” The Poetry Question, April 15, 2020
“Disassembly,” Anti-Heroin Chic, February 27, 2020
”TPQ5,” The Poetry Question, November 29, 2019
“Land of Lost Poets: Roberto Bolaño’s Legacy and Influence in The Spirit of Science Fiction,” Glass Mountain Magazine, Volume 22, Spring 2019, Book Review
“Thirst, and Other Poems,” Iron Lung Press, December 2018 [Chapbook]
“Christiana,” Analog Submission Press, June 2018 [Chapbook]
“Bear Down Into Hell With Me (As Only A True Friend Would),” Iron Lung Press, April 2018 [Chapbook]
“The Boys in County Hell,” The Bayou Review, Spring 2018
“The Yellow Dress,” Akashic Books, February 2017 [Mondays Are Murder Short Noir Fiction Series]
“Activist and Ex-Con Founder of The Prison Show Talks Doing Time, Crime, and the Art of Radio,” Shiver the Word, June 2016 [Wordpress Blog]
“Wisconsin,” In Recovery Magazine, April 2016
“Indie Aussie Brothers of Atlas Genius Offer Up Fresh Dose of Melancholic Funk,” The Huffington Post, co-written with Lauren Kruczyk, August 2015
“Doe Paoro to Release ‘After,’ an Enlightened Reconstruction of Time and Travel,” The Huffington Post, co-written with Lauren Kruczyk, September 2015
“The Kickback Gears Up for Their Full-Length Debut, Sorry All Over the Place,” The Huffington Post, co-written with Lauren Kruczyk, September 2015
“Top Spotify Trio Like Swimming Releases Tiny Structures,” The Huffington Post, co-written with Lauren Kruczyk, September 2015
“Circa Waves Talk Young Chasers, Dave Grohl, And the Magical World of The Strands,” Indietronica, co-written with Lauren Kruczyk, September 2015
“September,” “Water,” “Smoke Dancer,” “Bad Place,” “Dead Song,”and “Poem For Henry Vaughan,” Outlaw Poetry, September 2015
“The Hanged Man,” Laurels, Spring 2014
“Poetry Cycle: River City Rhapsody” L’Allure Des Mots, Spring, 2013
“The Bitch Also Rises,” Black Heart Magazine, August 2012
“It Was Somewhere in Mexico,” and “Streetlight Mantra,” Glass: A Journal of Poetry, December 2008
“Spiders and the Morning Madrigal,” “All those Ghosts,” and “Dance, Angel Death,” The Refined Savage Poetry Review, February 2008
Talks, Presentations, and Media Appearances
2022–The Prison Show KPFT, September 2, Read from novel-in-progress a chapter based on Ray Hill, the founder of the Prison Show and lifetime activist and ACLU lifetime achievement award winner. A live recording of the novel segment was broadcast on the show to thousands of inmates within range of the Prison Shows signal.
2022– Institute for World Literature Conference in Mainz, Germany.Colloquium Talk, “Abjection and The New Cinema of Evil,” I presented a Google Slides presentation of an essay which is forthcoming in Black Sun Lit, a literary journal that specializes on these writers and their philosophies. The presentation was on the connection between Geoge Bataille and Julia Kristeva’s philosophies when applied to what I’ve dubbed classic and contemporary “cinemas of evil.” I use the plural because Bataille posits a duality in evil. Something like the difference between doing evil and acting evil. Examples such as A Clockwork Orange , Marat/Sade, Salo, and Ken Russell’s The Devils served as the classic examples of positive or, expenditure and transgression with meaning and the ability to pierce the mind and provide a certain experience that is quite powerful, even hard to tolerate. We want to avert our eyes but can’t. The sacred and the profane don’t exist side by side, they are intermingled. Everyone hits the breaks a little when there’s an accident up ahead. Funny Games by Michael Haneke, and We Need to Talk About Kevin, and Martyrs served as contemporary examples. Through Kristeva’s theory of Abjection and Bataille’s Law of Expenditure, we deconstructed these films and put forth the theory of a “New Cinema of Evil,” basically positing that there is a duality in “evil cinema,” just as Bataille saw in literature, a difference between mind numbing violence as escapism, the wrong kind of expenditure, the kind that Bataille would not have considered sacred, and another order of films that use violence itself as a critique violence. Pasolini’s iconic film and subsequent brutal murder present a tragic real-life example of this duality. In an age of endless and worsening mass violence, it is more important than ever that we critics examine these questions carefully and thoughtfully.
2021—2022. Ongoing founder and co-director of “The Odessa Collective,” a small avant-garde group of poets and writers that run “Disconnection Hotline,” a reading series and community reading held the last Tuesday of every month at Rudyard’s pub on Waugh Street in Houston’s Montrose neighborhood until the venue changed to La Coqueta, where the reading series has grown in size and I believe it’s the second most attended reading series in Houston after WAN (Write About Now) a very popular Slam poetry night held at a spot called Avant-Garden.
“Institute for World Literature Conference 2021,” Held online due to pandemic, I presented a colloquium talk on the structural similarities between Neo Baroque literature and art with certain films (Such as Orlando, The Great Beauty, and various films by Peter Greenaway)
“Institute for World Literature Conference 2022,” Mainz, Germany. Presented a talk in a seminar on the theoretical works of Jean-Luc Nancy and a colloquium presentation: “Abjection and the New Cinema of Evil.”
“Sancho Panza Literary Society,” Became member (now well on my way to being a Teacher-in-Residence each summer at Trinity, Dublin, during our workshop period) of the literary society based out of Ireland, specifically Trinity University, Dublin, where we spend two weeks of workshops and intensive writing and readings once a year. We also meet in Washington DC once a year and Connecticut. We have various zoom calls throughout the year and stay in close touch. Each of us continuously submit to New Square Magazine, the Sancho Panza society’s magazine, in the hopes of creating a journal of the highest quality. It’s my (admittedly biased) opinion that we could reach great heights and become a renowned journal. The writers of The Sancho Panza Literary society are among the best I’ve ever encountered.
Glass Mountain Magazine Reading Series,” Featured Graduate Reader, September 18, 2020 via Zoom
“F***king Shakespeare Podcast,” Guest, Official podcast of #AWP20 with Bloomsday
Literary—Day 2, May 12, 2020
“Texas Presses at The Cove,” Featured Reader, Deep Vellum Publishing, AWP20, The Cove, 606 West Cypress St. San Antonio, TX 78212, March 6th, 2020
“Gulf Coast Reading Series,” Featured Reader, February 21, 2020, Lawndale Art Center, 4912 Main St. Houston, 77002
“Reel Poetry Festival,” Featured Reader, January 26th, 2020, Midtown Arts and Theater Center 3400 Main St, Houston, TX 77002
“Poetry and Prose Reading Series,” October 16th, 2019. The Honors College. M.D. Anderson Library. 4333 University Drive, Rm 212. Houston, TX 77204-2001
“Writers For Families Together,” Featured Reader, October 3rd, 2019, St. Paul’s United Methodist Church, 5501 Main St, Houston, TX 77004
“Writers For Migrant Justice,” Featured Reader, September 4th, 2019. Holocaust Museum of Houston, 5401 Caroline St, Houston, TX 77004
“Comité Permanente–Lecturas en Español,” Featured Reader, InPrint House, 1520 W Main St, Houston TX, August 31, 2019
“Gentle Hour 6,” Monthly morning reading series, Featured Reader, Sunday June 16, 2019. Kaboom Books, 3116 Houston Ave #6736, Houston, TX 7700
“Poetry and Prose Reading Series,” April 24, 2019. The Honors College. M.D. Anderson Library. 4333 University Drive, Rm 212. Houston, TX 77204-2001
“So, What’s Your Story?” KPFT 90.1 Radio Program, Featured Reader, May 9, 2019
“Public Poetry Library Reading Series,” Featured Reader, May 4, 2019, Oak Forest Library 1349 West 43rd Street
“Writing, Addiction, and Recovery,” Truth and Justice with Vivian King, TV Interview, Houston Media Source, December 5, 2018
“Restorative Justice,” Member of Conference/Speaking Panel, University of Houston-Downtown, November 29, 2018
“Today’s Latinx Writers: Out Loud and in Full Bloom,” Local Latinx Author Panel, LibroFEST, Houston Public Library, September 29, 2018
“An ‘Essential’ Time for Latino Stories,” , Interview, Houston Matters, Houston Public Media, September 28, 2018, local NPR station.
“KPFT Living Art with Bucky Rea,” Interview, September 27, 2018
“Glass Mountain Reading Series,” Featured Reader, September 25, 2018
“Outlaw Night,” Featured Reader, Beerland, Austin TX, Spoken Word Performance as opener for several punk and experimental projects, February 18th, 2018
“Truth and Justice with Vivian King,” TV Interview, Houston Media Source, January 3, 2018
“The Bayou Review Special Prison Issue,” The Prison Show, KPFT Pacifica Radio, Interview, December 1, 2017
“County Jail and Other Poems,” Channel Austin, National Poetry Month TV Reading, April
2010
Upcoming Projects
Currently shopping second novel, Rhymes of the Renegades, a fictional biography of a fictional literary movement that combines truth, fiction, and fabulism. Very influenced by Bernhard, Bolano, and the Argentine writer Roberto Arlt.
Continued work on Defunkt Magazine events (Readings were being conducted remotely, via Zoom, during Covid-19 pandemic) and now have stepped back from my role as co-editor to simply board member and contributing editor. Most recent article on Antifa and a clash with a neo-nazi organization while studying in Mainz, Germany is forthcoming and can be found on Defunktmag.com within the week. Diamond Braxton, the new Editor In Chief (who is doing an amazing job) was kind enough to consider my piece which includes unmasked pictures (the first time this group, which had been tear-gassed like most people at the rally. They escaped down the road to a bus stop where an Antifa photographer waited in the bush. Using a telescopic lens he was able to capture clear images of the group without their masks, which he passed on to me and were later published) of the group Neu Starke Partei, a far-right neonazi group from Germany that planned to march on Mainz. They were deterred at every entrypoint into the city by a combination of groups that could all fit under the umbrella term of “Antifa,” only in that what we all had in common was a sense of anti-facism, but the police tear gassed the counter-protestors anyway. The moment the Nazis surrendered, the police stepped in, as if taking their place.
Planned and executed a “Poetry Tour “ with New Jersey “Meat Poet” Thom Bahkelas and Rachel Preston along with musical backup beginning in New Orleans and ending in Dallas with various venues and improvisational performances scattered throughout.
Organized Defunkt screening of Argentinian independent film, El Tigre Sobre La Mesa. by director Juan M. Varela, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Other Accolades
My short story, “The Jazz Somnambulist,” published in 2021 by New Square Magazine and nominated for a Pushcart elicited a personalized response from the Pushcart committee informing us that I’d nearly won and had made it to the final rounds. Their letter said that while they were not previously aware of New Square Magazine they “would be keeping a close eye in the future,” especially for “another story by Chris Flakus.” I don’t even know if this is the kind of thing I can put on a CV, but I felt proud and honored from the moment of nomination. To learn that my story made it so far gave me a feeling unlike any I’d ever had. A combination of pride and nerves, because now I feel the pressure to come up with something spectacular for this year!
Languages
English, Spanish (Fluent, first language is Spanish while English I’d call my dominant language though I write, publish, give readings, and teach in both languages with an ease I’d almost call ambidextrous)
French/German (some)
PUBLISHED WORKS
Christopher Miguel Flakus
Washington DC
(936)-206-6888
Or
Education
University of Houston 4800 Calhoun Rd, Houston, TX 77004
MFA in Fiction from The University of Houston Creative Writing Program. Graduated May 2022.
University of Houston-Downtown,
One N Main St, Houston, TX
Bachelor of Arts, Degree Awarded May, 2018
Major: English [Creative Writing, Fiction]
St. Thomas University,
3800 Montrose Blvd, Houston, TX
Attended 2005-2006 and an additional semester in 2014
St. Edwards University,
3001 S Congress Ave, Austin, TX 78704
Attended 2007-2010
Lone Star College-Montgomery
3200 College Park Dr, Conroe, TX 77384
Attended 2004-2005, additional semester in 2015 prior to transfer to UHD
Awards and Fellowships
2017 Fabian Worsham Award for Fiction, University of Houston-Downtown
Honorary Diploma for Remote Teaching, Ponencia Intercultural UNAM, Preparatoria 8, Av. Lomas De Plateros S/N, Merced Gómez, Álvaro Obregón, 01600 Ciudad de México, CDMX, México.
2019 Inprint C. Glenn Cambor Fellowship
2022–Sterling Clack-Clack June Fiction Prize for short story, Dead Mall
Dead Mall — Sterling Clack Clack
Institute for World Literature Certificate of Completion Diploma 2021, online due to pandemic
Institute for World Literature Certificate of Completion Diploma 2022, Mainz Germany
2021–Present, Member of the Sancho Panza Literary Society based out of Dublin, though meetings take place in the United States once or twice a year. Normally these are fundraising readings from the New Square/SPLS staff writers along with musical performances between readers. We are centered around “New Square Magazine,” Trinity University’s literary journal. And the Irish-American Novelist Joseph Reynolds is the captain of our noble vessel.
2020 Research Assistantship with Arte Publico Press. Worked as editorial assistant and digital cataloger of a lost Mexican novel, worked directly digitizing its pages and readying them to press.
Editorial Experience
Fiction Editor, The Bayou Review, Department of English, University of Houston-Downtown, 2016-2017
(Began as intern in 2016, promoted to Fiction Editor in 2017. Developed a concept for a special prison issue which gave voice to the voiceless, breaking through iron bars and barbed wire for their stories to reach the hands of hundreds of readers. Collaborated with KPFT Prison Show and the famous activist and ACLU Lifetime Award member Ray Hill, a truly great man, who wrote the foreword).
Contributor, The Hilltop Views, St. Edward’s University, 3001 S. Congress Ave.,
# 964, Austin, TX 78704-6489, 2007
Co-Founder and Co-Editor-in-Chief, Defunkt Magazine, defunktmag.com
February 2019–2022
By February of 2022 Defunkt Magazine’s (https://www.defunktmag.com/) my Co-Editor-in-Chief Miranda Ramirez and I made the joint decision to hand Defunkt over to Diamond Braxton, our fiction editor at the time, who has since done a superb job as Editor-In-Chief. Miranda and I took positions as board members and contributing authors (though we go through the same submission process as anyone else). I recently submitted and had a piece I wrote in Germany this summer accepted. It’s about a demonstration between a neo-nazi group called the Neu Starke Partei and Antifa that I both witnessed and, as such scary situations can escalate, became involved in on Antifa’s side. Both my co-eic and I needed to focus on our novels-in-progress, though she remains more involved than I am with the magazine.
In her case an MFA program had to take priority, and in mine in order to finish my current novel, before which I’d just finished my first novel, which also happened to be my thesis for my MFA Defense.
Defunkt has been handed down to a new generation and rests in the most capable hands. Diamond is doing an amazing job and has final say on all decisions related to the magazine. I wish very dearly that Defunkt will persevere through many epochs, each with its own aesthetic and tuning, its own special blend of staff dedicated to raising the voices of marginalized writers as our mission statement proclaims. So far this seems to be happening and I couldn’t feel prouder to have been part of the founding and running of this amazing magazine.
Research Assistant Fellow, Arte Publico Press, artepublicopress.com
September 2020—September 2021
Responsibilities: I worked as an editor, proofreading and leaving comments on books by Latinx authors such as Jimmy Santiago Baca and also took part in Digital Humanities efforts, logging cases of prejudice and racial violence against Latinx communities into a digital map, searchable by name, time period, or region. A project of immense importance.
Related Experience
Death Bird Poetry Tour: Co-headlined a poetry tour from New Orleans (Club Istanbul) through three dates in Houston, (Bohemeo’s, Write About Now, and La Coqueta) before ending at Deep Vellum Books and Publishers in Dallas, there first post-pandemic featured reading and open-mic. My co-headliner, Thom Bakelas, is a central figure of the current “New Jersey Renaissance,” as it’s begun to be called, of poetry. I’d always admired Thom’s work and I’d put out one chapbook of mine, Hurricanes, on his Between Shadows Press. That’s how our friendship began and through the years we sent each other letters with new chapbooks we’d written, or links to publications of ours online. We planned the tour together with his Between Shadows Press partnering with my own Odessa Collective, which I co-run with Houston poet Rachel Preston. The so-called “Death Bird,” is the Shoe-Billed Stork, a rare and almost extinct creature. Incredibly beautiful with feathers as long as Bowie Knives. It has this enormous beak and eats baby crocodiles. There are only four in The US, and one happens to be in the Dallas Aquarium. After officially finishing our tour at Deep Vellum, we awoke the next day and gave it our own final closing, bowing to, and reading poetry to the Shoe-Billed stork for nearly two hours. I can’t think of another tour like this being organized successfully and seen through to its finish since the 60’s. We were nothing if not a merry band of troubadours. Texas singer-songwriter Josh Brown accompanied us on half the tour, and Kenny Baird at our La Coqueta date on acoustic guitar. Two of the best musicians in town. I’ve always found this helps alleviate “reading fatigue” and gives folks the time to meet each other, get libations, and work up the courage to sign up for an open mic spot. We basically broke even, but the tour’s more than a success if we managed that. We’re already planning our follow up on the East-Coast for next year.
English Instructor: English 1301 Instructor, University of Houston since August 23, 2021. Responsibilities include the creation of syllabi, assignments, grading, and engaging class discussion as well as giving daily writing prompts to familiarize us with the wiring process. Again, these were designed by me to be useful to their first and final essays and how to structure them.
UH Writing Center,
Responsibilities: Worked one-on-one with students from many degrees, from engineering students to scientific research papers and even job applications. We worked by appointment and I felt proud that many returning students asked to work with me specifically.
KPFT 90.1, The Prison Show, 419 Lovett Blvd. Houston, Texas 77006, May 2016-2018
Duties: Volunteer, Cameraman on Facebook Live Stream of show. Prior to joining as a volunteer wrote a blog on The Prison Show in June of 2016 and conducted a video interview with Ray Hill. Later returned as guest speaker on The Prison Show alongside fellow Bayou Review editor Michelle Laird in December of 2017. The support of The Prison Show was instrumental in the publishing of our special prison issue of The Bayou Review which contained creative writing by incarcerated authors, most of whom are serving life sentences. Most recently I appeared on the air reading a short story I’d published in honor of Ray Hill, founder of The Prison Show and (may he rest in peace) a good friend and artistic collaborator of mine. I’m proud I got to know such a character and honored that my story, which proved successful in my opinion because it moved his friends and loved ones enough for them to ask for it to be included on the show. I only hope Ray would be proud of it too.
SIJ Outreach Program, American School Foundation, Bondojito 215, Las Américas, 01120 Álvaro Obregón, CDMX, Mexico, May 2001
Duties: Volunteer, helped deliver 16 tons of food, clothes, and medical supplies over the Sierra Madre Occidental to a remote Tarahumara village, an eighteen-hour drive on an automatic bus, an experience that has left a lasting impression and significantly shaped my written work.
InPrint Workshop Leader: Led a six-week Memoir/Nonfiction workshop from October 10th on. Reading materials included memoirs such as Tara Westover’s Educated, Reynaldo Arenas’ Before Night Falls, and Harry Crews’ Childhood: A Biography of a Place. Apart from these readings we had generative and mnemonic exercises, each challenging ourselves to dig deeply into our own pasts. Easily the most gratifying teaching experience I’ve ever had and one very special group of writers.
Publications
Dumpster Fire Press, “Guns, God, Glory, and Greed,” published two other excerpts from my rogue’s gallery novel:“My Life Among the Outlaw Poets,” in their print anthology. https://www.amazon.com/GUNS-GLORY-GREED-Dumpster-Press/dp/B0BFWLZTW8/ref=sr_1_1?qid=1667335206&refinements=p_27%3ADumpster+Fire+Press&s=books&sr=1-1
New Square Magazine, “My Life Among the Outlaw Poets,” published an excerpt of my new novel, as a standalone short story. August 5th, 2022 https://sanchopanzalit.wixsite.com/newsquare/post/my-life-among-the-outlaw-poets
Defunkt Magazine, Essay, “Special Edition: Haus Mainusch,” August 5th 2022
https://www.defunktmag.com/post/special-feature-haus-mainusch
Poetry E-Train “Texas Poet in Paris 2022” Video Poem, July 12th 2022 Written, filmed, and edited on commission for PoetryETrain.
“Desensitization Tank,” Forthcoming Free Press Print Anthology
“The Jazz Somnambulist” New Square Magazine, Nominated for Pushcart Prize and written up as a “Staff Pick,” Spring 2021 | Volume 3 Issue 2 | Sancho Panza Literary Society (Got a nod from the Pushcart Committee, a personalized letter to the editor of New Square expressing their interest in the story and a promise to be looking closely next year at New Square and particularly my work in it).
“Dead Mall,” Sterling Clack-Clack, Winner of June Fiction Prize 2021
“Hurricanes,” [Chapbook] published by Between Shadows Press.
“Poem for a Train,” Poetry Train: 10th Anniversary Anthology, edited by John D. Wordslinger. https://www.amazon.com/Poetry-Train/e/B08QLL2TVW January, 2020
“Christiana,” Analog Submission Press, (Second print run of previous chapbook, same story, though heavily revised with some key plot changes) December, 2020
“COVID has forced Americans to flee their cities, but I’m not leaving,” Houston Chronicle, Chron.com, August 28, 2020
“5 Things I’m Going to do in Houston Once the Pandemic Ends,” Houston Chronicle, Chron.com, July 27, 2020
“Power of Poetry #101,” The Poetry Question, April 15, 2020
“Disassembly,” Anti-Heroin Chic, February 27, 2020
”TPQ5,” The Poetry Question, November 29, 2019
“Land of Lost Poets: Roberto Bolaño’s Legacy and Influence in The Spirit of Science Fiction,” Glass Mountain Magazine, Volume 22, Spring 2019, Book Review
“Thirst, and Other Poems,” Iron Lung Press, December 2018 [Chapbook]
“Christiana,” Analog Submission Press, June 2018 [Chapbook]
“Bear Down Into Hell With Me (As Only A True Friend Would),” Iron Lung Press, April 2018 [Chapbook]
“The Boys in County Hell,” The Bayou Review, Spring 2018
“The Yellow Dress,” Akashic Books, February 2017 [Mondays Are Murder Short Noir Fiction Series]
“Activist and Ex-Con Founder of The Prison Show Talks Doing Time, Crime, and the Art of Radio,” Shiver the Word, June 2016 [Wordpress Blog]
“Wisconsin,” In Recovery Magazine, April 2016
“Indie Aussie Brothers of Atlas Genius Offer Up Fresh Dose of Melancholic Funk,” The Huffington Post, co-written with Lauren Kruczyk, August 2015
“Doe Paoro to Release ‘After,’ an Enlightened Reconstruction of Time and Travel,” The Huffington Post, co-written with Lauren Kruczyk, September 2015
“The Kickback Gears Up for Their Full-Length Debut, Sorry All Over the Place,” The Huffington Post, co-written with Lauren Kruczyk, September 2015
“Top Spotify Trio Like Swimming Releases Tiny Structures,” The Huffington Post, co-written with Lauren Kruczyk, September 2015
“Circa Waves Talk Young Chasers, Dave Grohl, And the Magical World of The Strands,” Indietronica, co-written with Lauren Kruczyk, September 2015
“September,” “Water,” “Smoke Dancer,” “Bad Place,” “Dead Song,”and “Poem For Henry Vaughan,” Outlaw Poetry, September 2015
“The Hanged Man,” Laurels, Spring 2014
“Poetry Cycle: River City Rhapsody” L’Allure Des Mots, Spring, 2013
“The Bitch Also Rises,” Black Heart Magazine, August 2012
“It Was Somewhere in Mexico,” and “Streetlight Mantra,” Glass: A Journal of Poetry, December 2008
“Spiders and the Morning Madrigal,” “All those Ghosts,” and “Dance, Angel Death,” The Refined Savage Poetry Review, February 2008
Talks, Presentations, and Media Appearances
2022–The Prison Show KPFT, September 2, Read from novel-in-progress a chapter based on Ray Hill, the founder of the Prison Show and lifetime activist and ACLU lifetime achievement award winner. A live recording of the novel segment was broadcast on the show to thousands of inmates within range of the Prison Shows signal.
2022– Institute for World Literature Conference in Mainz, Germany.Colloquium Talk, “Abjection and The New Cinema of Evil,” I presented a Google Slides presentation of an essay which is forthcoming in Black Sun Lit, a literary journal that specializes on these writers and their philosophies. The presentation was on the connection between Geoge Bataille and Julia Kristeva’s philosophies when applied to what I’ve dubbed classic and contemporary “cinemas of evil.” I use the plural because Bataille posits a duality in evil. Something like the difference between doing evil and acting evil. Examples such as A Clockwork Orange , Marat/Sade, Salo, and Ken Russell’s The Devils served as the classic examples of positive or, expenditure and transgression with meaning and the ability to pierce the mind and provide a certain experience that is quite powerful, even hard to tolerate. We want to avert our eyes but can’t. The sacred and the profane don’t exist side by side, they are intermingled. Everyone hits the breaks a little when there’s an accident up ahead. Funny Games by Michael Haneke, and We Need to Talk About Kevin, and Martyrs served as contemporary examples. Through Kristeva’s theory of Abjection and Bataille’s Law of Expenditure, we deconstructed these films and put forth the theory of a “New Cinema of Evil,” basically positing that there is a duality in “evil cinema,” just as Bataille saw in literature, a difference between mind numbing violence as escapism, the wrong kind of expenditure, the kind that Bataille would not have considered sacred, and another order of films that use violence itself as a critique violence. Pasolini’s iconic film and subsequent brutal murder present a tragic real-life example of this duality. In an age of endless and worsening mass violence, it is more important than ever that we critics examine these questions carefully and thoughtfully.
2021—2022. Ongoing founder and co-director of “The Odessa Collective,” a small avant-garde group of poets and writers that run “Disconnection Hotline,” a reading series and community reading held the last Tuesday of every month at Rudyard’s pub on Waugh Street in Houston’s Montrose neighborhood until the venue changed to La Coqueta, where the reading series has grown in size and I believe it’s the second most attended reading series in Houston after WAN (Write About Now) a very popular Slam poetry night held at a spot called Avant-Garden.
“Institute for World Literature Conference 2021,” Held online due to pandemic, I presented a colloquium talk on the structural similarities between Neo Baroque literature and art with certain films (Such as Orlando, The Great Beauty, and various films by Peter Greenaway)
“Institute for World Literature Conference 2022,” Mainz, Germany. Presented a talk in a seminar on the theoretical works of Jean-Luc Nancy and a colloquium presentation: “Abjection and the New Cinema of Evil.”
“Sancho Panza Literary Society,” Became member (now well on my way to being a Teacher-in-Residence each summer at Trinity, Dublin, during our workshop period) of the literary society based out of Ireland, specifically Trinity University, Dublin, where we spend two weeks of workshops and intensive writing and readings once a year. We also meet in Washington DC once a year and Connecticut. We have various zoom calls throughout the year and stay in close touch. Each of us continuously submit to New Square Magazine, the Sancho Panza society’s magazine, in the hopes of creating a journal of the highest quality. It’s my (admittedly biased) opinion that we could reach great heights and become a renowned journal. The writers of The Sancho Panza Literary society are among the best I’ve ever encountered.
Glass Mountain Magazine Reading Series,” Featured Graduate Reader, September 18, 2020 via Zoom
“F***king Shakespeare Podcast,” Guest, Official podcast of #AWP20 with Bloomsday
Literary—Day 2, May 12, 2020
“Texas Presses at The Cove,” Featured Reader, Deep Vellum Publishing, AWP20, The Cove, 606 West Cypress St. San Antonio, TX 78212, March 6th, 2020
“Gulf Coast Reading Series,” Featured Reader, February 21, 2020, Lawndale Art Center, 4912 Main St. Houston, 77002
“Reel Poetry Festival,” Featured Reader, January 26th, 2020, Midtown Arts and Theater Center 3400 Main St, Houston, TX 77002
“Poetry and Prose Reading Series,” October 16th, 2019. The Honors College. M.D. Anderson Library. 4333 University Drive, Rm 212. Houston, TX 77204-2001
“Writers For Families Together,” Featured Reader, October 3rd, 2019, St. Paul’s United Methodist Church, 5501 Main St, Houston, TX 77004
“Writers For Migrant Justice,” Featured Reader, September 4th, 2019. Holocaust Museum of Houston, 5401 Caroline St, Houston, TX 77004
“Comité Permanente–Lecturas en Español,” Featured Reader, InPrint House, 1520 W Main St, Houston TX, August 31, 2019
“Gentle Hour 6,” Monthly morning reading series, Featured Reader, Sunday June 16, 2019. Kaboom Books, 3116 Houston Ave #6736, Houston, TX 7700
“Poetry and Prose Reading Series,” April 24, 2019. The Honors College. M.D. Anderson Library. 4333 University Drive, Rm 212. Houston, TX 77204-2001
“So, What’s Your Story?” KPFT 90.1 Radio Program, Featured Reader, May 9, 2019
“Public Poetry Library Reading Series,” Featured Reader, May 4, 2019, Oak Forest Library 1349 West 43rd Street
“Writing, Addiction, and Recovery,” Truth and Justice with Vivian King, TV Interview, Houston Media Source, December 5, 2018
“Restorative Justice,” Member of Conference/Speaking Panel, University of Houston-Downtown, November 29, 2018
“Today’s Latinx Writers: Out Loud and in Full Bloom,” Local Latinx Author Panel, LibroFEST, Houston Public Library, September 29, 2018
“An ‘Essential’ Time for Latino Stories,” , Interview, Houston Matters, Houston Public Media, September 28, 2018, local NPR station.
“KPFT Living Art with Bucky Rea,” Interview, September 27, 2018
“Glass Mountain Reading Series,” Featured Reader, September 25, 2018
“Outlaw Night,” Featured Reader, Beerland, Austin TX, Spoken Word Performance as opener for several punk and experimental projects, February 18th, 2018
“Truth and Justice with Vivian King,” TV Interview, Houston Media Source, January 3, 2018
“The Bayou Review Special Prison Issue,” The Prison Show, KPFT Pacifica Radio, Interview, December 1, 2017
“County Jail and Other Poems,” Channel Austin, National Poetry Month TV Reading, April
2010
Upcoming Projects
Currently shopping second novel, Rhymes of the Renegades, a fictional biography of a fictional literary movement that combines truth, fiction, and fabulism. Very influenced by Bernhard, Bolano, and the Argentine writer Roberto Arlt.
Continued work on Defunkt Magazine events (Readings were being conducted remotely, via Zoom, during Covid-19 pandemic) and now have stepped back from my role as co-editor to simply board member and contributing editor. Most recent article on Antifa and a clash with a neo-nazi organization while studying in Mainz, Germany is forthcoming and can be found on Defunktmag.com within the week. Diamond Braxton, the new Editor In Chief (who is doing an amazing job) was kind enough to consider my piece which includes unmasked pictures (the first time this group, which had been tear-gassed like most people at the rally. They escaped down the road to a bus stop where an Antifa photographer waited in the bush. Using a telescopic lens he was able to capture clear images of the group without their masks, which he passed on to me and were later published) of the group Neu Starke Partei, a far-right neonazi group from Germany that planned to march on Mainz. They were deterred at every entrypoint into the city by a combination of groups that could all fit under the umbrella term of “Antifa,” only in that what we all had in common was a sense of anti-facism, but the police tear gassed the counter-protestors anyway. The moment the Nazis surrendered, the police stepped in, as if taking their place.
Planned and executed a “Poetry Tour “ with New Jersey “Meat Poet” Thom Bahkelas and Rachel Preston along with musical backup beginning in New Orleans and ending in Dallas with various venues and improvisational performances scattered throughout.
Organized Defunkt screening of Argentinian independent film, El Tigre Sobre La Mesa. by director Juan M. Varela, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Other Accolades
My short story, “The Jazz Somnambulist,” published in 2021 by New Square Magazine and nominated for a Pushcart elicited a personalized response from the Pushcart committee informing us that I’d nearly won and had made it to the final rounds. Their letter said that while they were not previously aware of New Square Magazine they “would be keeping a close eye in the future,” especially for “another story by Chris Flakus.” I don’t even know if this is the kind of thing I can put on a CV, but I felt proud and honored from the moment of nomination. To learn that my story made it so far gave me a feeling unlike any I’d ever had. A combination of pride and nerves, because now I feel the pressure to come up with something spectacular for this year!
Languages
English, Spanish (Fluent, first language is Spanish while English I’d call my dominant language though I write, publish, give readings, and teach in both languages with an ease I’d almost call ambidextrous)
French/German (some)
Mondays Are Murder
Check out my new story, The Yellow Dress, part of Akashic Books’ Mondays Are Murder noir fan fiction!
The Greatest Christmas Song of All Time
Election Night
by Christopher Miguel Flakus
Election Night
Radial glow of the automaton
Growth comes in spurts
This may be our last hour
Weird shadows cripple streetlights
Halogen washes all colors clean
I taste blood, sharp as aluminum
Orange suntan cataclysm
Legalize results
Results first
In New York the crowd chants:
“We hateMuslimss, we hate blacks, we want our country back!”
Is this how
The end
Creeps upon us?
Waves of maddened masses drunk on hate
I’m ashamed
Oh, America
Aren’t you ashamed?
St. Christopher Consigned to a Mountain of Trash
Allowed to return again with books and coffee
And already late now going on fifteen minutes…
Cigarettes, and papers, a pen, all my things in order
Only now I’m missing my keys, as integral to movement as the will to move itself
Their loss anathema to my design
Perhaps the cushions swallowed them up last night?
I fell asleep watching Shadows, by John Cassavettes
A film I have seen many times before
For precisely that reason I like to play it as I drift off
The voices sound familiar
Like the conversations of old friends
Warm, and comforting, I feel less alone with their voices…
And as I slept perhaps my keys tore loose from my back pocket and made a run for it
Desperate to escape the subjugation they endure
Pushed back tightly so near my ass, so far from heaven
Forgotten and often discarded accidentally…
Yes, I think, discarded!
(EUREKA!) I have found it!
The gold keychain my mother gave me of Saint Christopher
Peeking out from inside trash can in my kitchen, just below a banana peel
Holding Christ baby aloft amongst a sea of detritus
I must have thrown them away along with my empty coffee
But there is no sacrilege in the act
I don’t think they’ve ever looked as holy as they appeared then, awash in the filth
A glint of gold
Amongst the rubble
Of my solitary life
Activist and Ex-Con Founder Of The Prison Show Talks Doing Time, Crime, and The Art of Radio
By Christopher Flakus
Ray Hill was sentenced to serve 160 years in prison and, although he has been a free man for decades, he says he is still serving that sentence. Known in Houston as a gay activist who has engaged in a wide range of social causes, he has also been an advocate for prison reform and is especially proud of having founded a weekly radio program that speaks to Texas inmates and the people who care about them.
KPFT’s Prison Show airs on 90.1 FM Fridays at 9pm (online at http://kpft.org/programming/newstalk/prison-show/). The show covers issues of importance to convicts and their loved ones and provides an opportunity during the second hour for callers to “shout out” to their loved ones behind bars.
“When you turn on the microphone on the radio you are talking to everybody,” Ray said to me during our recent interview at The Prison Show’s 36th Anniversary celebration. But, he said, after the callers exchange pleasantries with the hosts and speak directly to their incarcerated loved ones, something special happens.
“These people (are) calling in and talking about their personal lives to people they love as if nobody could hear that but them. Suddenly we are eavesdropping into other people’s lives.”
After The Prison Show went on the air in 1980, Texas publications such as The Houston Chronicle and The Dallas Morning News published stories about it and it later gained national attention in The New York Times and on National Public Radio (NPR).
“They weren’t talking about me, and what I did,” Hill said, “They were talking about those voices. Because that was the compelling part of the show. So I stopped talking to free-world people altogether except talking to them when they called in…when I’m on the show, I’m talking to convicts.”
Former convict Rick Loller is a longtime listener of the show. He first heard it while serving a prison sentence in 1978, most of which was spent in solitary confinement “It was such a beautiful thing to know that someone cared enough to put friends and family in touch with those incarcerated” Rick said to me , “Even though they weren’t my friends or my direct family calling in, it still had a big impact on my life. There were times when that program would come on, and as I did most of my time in segregation, we would each listen to it in our solitary confinement cells. Listening to the show would take us away from the frustrations and the drama of being in prison and away from our loved ones. I can actually remember tears in my eyes while listening to the show, and a guard coming by, and I looked up and said, ‘yeah I’m crying, so what?'”
Prison Show Producer David Collingsworth became aware of the show while serving in Texas prisons and credits it with helping him find his way to sobriety and a clean, lawful life on the outside. He was one of the “eavesdroppers,” listening each week to the loved ones of others calling in and talking about family matters as well as providing words of encouragement.
“It got to be, if someone didn’t call in, you would miss them,” he said.
After being released from prison, Collingsworth sought out Ray Hill and became involved with the program, learning the radio skills necessary to put together a two-hour broadcast that is both informative and compelling. He now works closely with Hank Lamb, the show’s main host, who served time in California before returning to his native Texas and learning about the program.
Ray Hill is about as far from the stereotype of a “criminal” as you can get. He is soft spoken and erudite, his kind face punctuated by a well-kept white beard that lends a scholarly touch to his friendly demeanor. He came out of the closet in 1958, a year before graduating from high school. Hill, a veritable factotum at a young age, was working at various jobs but not making enough to keep him in the lifestyle he wanted to live. After getting a job with a company that printed checks, he began filling some of them out and cashing them. After a spree that ranged from Texas to Louisiana, Nevada, and New Mexico, Hill ended up in San Diego, California’s County Jail charged with fraud. He was clasped in leg-irons and handcuffs with chains running through a leather belt.
“I looked like an extra in a Marquis DeSade movie,” Ray said in an online video interview with Houston attorney Vivian R. King.
After being transferred back to Texas by none other than Marvin Zindler, who, many years before he became a famous Houston television personality, served as a Harris County deputy sheriff, working with the fugitive squad. Hill said he enjoyed the conversations he had with the colorful Zindler during the long drive back to Houston. When Hill arrived at Harris County Jail, he found the conditions to be appalling. This experience lead to an interest in criminal justice reform that has stayed with him ever since.
Hill was sentenced to six years and served 18 months; he was released in 1964. However, his life of crime was not yet over. After his release he “studied” crime, familiarizing himself with alarm systems. Hill and his burglary crew stole antiques, art, jewels, and electronics. After an investigation lead to the discovery of a warehouse full of stolen goods, Hill was busted again and sentenced to 20 consecutive eight-year sentences…160 years in prison.
“I went to prison thinking I was going to do the rest of my life in prison.” Hill said, in his online interview with Vivian King, “That’s a whole different mindset. I went down thinking, ‘how do I live here for the rest of my life?’ That kind of total immersion, of course, made me a very strong student of prison culture, prison life. This is where I live, this is the country I live in.”
Luckily for Hill, he only served 4 years, 4 months, and 17 days after a compromise was reached in his case, changing the consecutive sentence to concurrent and drastically reducing his sentence. Prior to his time in prison Ray Hill had been an activist involved in gay-rights issues as well as protests against the Vietnam war. He became one of the co-founders of KPFT, Houston’s listener-supported community radio station.
“When I got out of prison I was absolutely convinced, because number one, I am gay, and number two, I am an ex-convict, that I was going to be nobody for the rest of my life” Hill told me. “But I had helped build this radio station…and I became the first openly gay, ex convict to manage a broadcast facility in The United States. With that done, I could do anything I wanted to as long as it was radio. So I gave myself some time to talk about prison.”
Hill envisioned using radio to discuss prison reform and life after prison.
“In 1975 through 1980, if you went to prison you were ignored for the rest of your life. I had learned this business about closets from my experience as a gay person. So the first thing I did was go on the air and tell people to come out of the closet about going to prison. By coming out of the closet, what had been a liability might be accepted by others as a sign of honesty and courage.”
Upon release, it is not uncommon for ex-convicts to find themselves facing a difficult world. In a sense, many remain invisible. Grim statistics show colossal recidivism rates. The vast majority of convicts committed their crimes due to drug use, and yet treatment options are still limited both inside and in the free-world. The brand of convict is a major hindrance to employment and housing, not to mention the social stigma it carries. Ultimately, it is programs like The Prison Show, and people like Ray Hill who can make a difference. They decry the crisis of mass-incarceration and push to humanize a deeply bureaucratic and failed prison system and offer hope to many of those who remain behind bars in Texas.
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christopherflakus 