MAKE Literary Productions

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MAKE Literary Productions

MAKE Literary Productions promotes contemporary literary writing, translation, and visual art through MAKE Mag and the Lit & Luz Festival.

MAKE Literary Productions, NFP supports, promotes, and engages contemporary writers, artists, and audiences through publishing, multidisciplinary arts events, and international cultural exchange.

12/30/2025

With 2026 just days away, we’re asking for your support now to help MAKE a difference ✨🙏

And right now, your gift can go twice as far — if MAKE reaches $1,500, an anonymous donor will match every dollar! 🎁✨

MAKE Literary Productions works to make art more accessible across cultures. We address the lack of access and exposure to Latinx/e poets and artists—especially those whose multilingual, cross-cultural work blends literature, performance, visual art, and more 🎭📚🎨

Through the Lit & Luz Festival, we cultivate cross-border partnerships and elevate new voices through dynamic literary, artistic, and performance events. 🇺🇸🤝🇲🇽

Artist Laleh Motlagh described the experience beautifully:
“Lit & Luz was truly a unique experience. Collaborating with a writer from a different culture was inspiring, encouraging, and challenging. We combined our practices and spoken languages into one cohesive artwork that stretched our thinking beyond ourselves.”

At a time of heightened political tensions—especially around immigration—this platform is essential 🌎🔥

Lit & Luz brings together extraordinary Latin and Latinx voices while supporting emerging writers and enriching the performance literature landscapes of Chicago and Mexico.

Your support today helps create space for artists and audiences on both sides of the border—ensuring greater visibility for the communities we serve and strengthening the creative connections that matter most 💬❤️

MAKE’s Lit & Luz exists because of people like you who believe in the transformative power of art and community. Thank you for helping create spaces where our languages, stories, and creative visions can thrive! 🌟📝

We wish you and your loved ones a 2026 filled with joy, care, and community. Happy New Year! 🎉🥂

Image: Lit & Luz 2025–26 Collaboration Cohort artists, hosts, and staff at the Live Magazine Show, MCA, 2025. Photo by Natasha Moustache

12/25/2025

Thank you to everyone who showed up, supported, and brought incredible energy to our Lit & Luz Festival this year. We couldn’t have done it without you! ✨

And especially thank you to Lit & Luz main sponsors for 2025: The Richard H. Driehaus Foundation, Chicago Community Trust, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, UIC Center for Latinx Literature of the Americas DCASE, and the Poetry Foundation ❤️

Image: Live Magazine Show audience & reception at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (MCA), Lit & Luz Chicago 2025. Photo by Natasha Moustache

12/24/2025

Hear what Diana Garza Islas had to say a few days before the iconic Lit & Luz Live Magazine Show at the ! As the year is wrapping up, we’re reminiscing such good memories ✨🫶

12/23/2025

Now more than ever, our communities need to uplift Latinx/e voices and invest in programming that brings people together across cultures, languages, and borders 🌎✨

Since its founding in 2004, MAKE has grown from a small saddle-stitched magazine into a vibrant arts organization—one that now produces the international Lit & Luz Festival of Language, Literature, and Art. 🇺🇸🤝🇲🇽

And the impact is inspiring. Past Lit & Luz participants have shared:

“The emphasis on cross-border, multilingual collaboration is truly radical… It demonstrates the festival’s commitment to authentic, meaningful interaction among artists.”
— Diego Báez, Chicago-based writer & educator

“I’m deeply moved by being able to share with other people, in other latitudes… united, sutured by the same thing.”
— Clyo Mendoza, Oaxaca-based poet
This is why your support matters ❤️

🎁 Now through December 31, your gift is doubled.
If MAKE reaches $1,500, an anonymous donor will match every dollar. Thanks to Giving Tuesday, we’ve already raised $500—just $1,000 more to unlock the match! 🙌✨

Your gift—at any level—helps ensure that artists from Chicago, Mexico, and beyond can continue creating work that fosters empathy, imagination, and cross-cultural connection 💫

Thank you for supporting these efforts. We can’t wait to see the difference your generosity will make! ❤️
Wishing you and your loved ones a joyful, caring, and community-filled 2026.
Happy Holidays! 🎄✨

Image: Ana Hernández and Stefania Gomez, “Ra Lidxi Niza” / “Donde habita el maíz” / “Where Corn Lives” at the Lit & Luz Live Magazine Show, MCA, 2025. Photo by Natasha Moustache

12/22/2025

Created in collaboration with the Poetry Foundation, this Lit & Luz podcast episode features Iván Perez, Assistant Editor of the Foundation’s Poetry magazine, in conversation with writer & educator Diego Báez, 2024-25 Lit & Luz Collaboration Cohort alum. Together, they engage in a wide-ranging discussion about place, practice & collaboration 💭

Báez reflects on his writing practice, tracing his early encounters with poetry, his work in fiction & literary criticism, & the nonlinear path that led to the publication of his poetry collection ‘Yaguareté White’ (University of Ariza Press, 2024).

Pérez & Báez share their experiences as writers, exploring the role of political urgency in reactivating creative work & the interdependence of reading & writing, & what it means to write across genres, across borders, & in collaboration with others.

Hear the full episode by clicking the link in our bio 🔗

12/18/2025

Tell us about your favorite Lit & Luz Chicago 2025 moment! ✨

Whether it was a powerful reading, an unexpected collaboration, or a spark of inspiration that stayed with you, we want to hear the moments that made this year’s festival unforgettable.

Share your thoughts by writing a comment below or filling out our survey in the link in bio 🔗

Image: Live Magazine Show audience at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (MCA), Lit & Luz Chicago 2025. Photo by Natasha Moustache

12/16/2025

At this year’s Lit & Luz Festival, we were deeply moved by what attendees shared about their experiences—reminders of why this work matters, and why we’re asking for your support today 💫

To strengthen and sustain this vital programming, we’ve launched the MAKE Mission Fund—a new fund supporting artists and writers, our staff, and the cross-cultural collaborations that define Lit & Luz 🇺🇸🤝🇲🇽
Your gift—whether one-time or monthly—directly fuels this work ❤️

As one attendee put it:
“The best part of literature (and art generally) is that it encourages and enhances our ability to feel empathy for others… A lot of the problems we encounter today in the world is a failure of imagination and a consequent lack of empathy.”
— Dan Uber, Lit & Luz Chicago attendee

This truth guides everything we do. Dialogue across borders, neighborhoods, languages, and artistic disciplines is essential—not only for understanding one another, but for building a better world 🌎✨

And right now, your support goes even further:
If MAKE reaches $1,500 in donations by December 31, an anonymous donor will match every dollar—doubling your impact. Thanks to Giving Tuesday, we’ve raised $500 so far—just $1,000 more to unlock the match! 🎉

Help us reach our goal and keep this dialogue alive 🙌

Thank you for supporting the creative exchange our communities need! ❤️

Image: Maria Gaspar and Gabriela Damián Miravete, “What broken bones will we mend together now?” / “¿Qué huesos rotos sanaremos ahora?”, at the Lit & Luz Live Magazine Show, MCA, 2025. Photo by Natasha Moustache

12/11/2025

Our electrifying Live Magazine Show at the MCA during the Lit & Luz Festival brought audiences into a vibrant cross-cultural exchange where literature, art, and performance converged on stage 🤩

Artists, writers, musicians, and visual storytellers from Chicago and Mexico City shared bold new work, weaving languages and genres into an unforgettable collaborative spectacle ✨🎉

Images: Lit & Luz 2025–26 Collaboration Cohort performances at the Live Magazine Show, MCA, 2025. Photo by Natasha Moustache

12/09/2025

✨ MAKE Literary Productions uplifts contemporary writers and artists through publishing, multidisciplinary arts events, and meaningful cultural exchange between the US and Mexico. As we look ahead, we’re asking for your support now. A gift today helps sustain the vital programming that makes this work possible—programming that connects communities and fuels cross-cultural collaboration 💫

https://www.litluz.org/give

At the heart of our mission is the Lit & Luz Festival. What began in 2012 as a small series of bilingual events has grown into a cornerstone for US–Mexico artistic exchange 🇺🇸🤝🇲🇽

Twelve editions later, Lit & Luz continues to meet the moment—this year inviting our cohort of artists to explore what it means to restore, heal, and reimagine what’s broken in a time defined by uncertainty and global humanitarian crisis. The result? A powerful space of radical creativity and cultural solidarity—proof that repair is not only possible, but transformative ✨

Image: Lit & Luz 2025–26 Collaboration Cohort artists, hosts, and staff at the Live Magazine Show, MCA, 2025. Photo by Natasha Moustache

12/03/2025

Hear what our Cohort Participant Gabriela Damián Miravete has to say about the recent Lit & Luz 2025 Chicago Festival 😍 Remember, we’ll be back very soon this upcoming March to do it all again… in Mexico City! 🇲🇽

12/02/2025

This Giving Tuesday, please donate $25 or any amount at litluz.org/give or by clicking the link in our bio. The 2025 Lit & Luz theme, “Repair / Reparar,” prompted this year’s cohort of artists to reflect on what it means to restore, heal, and reimagine what is broken at a time marked by uncertainty and ongoing humanitarian crisis. In its 12th edition, the festival provided a space for radical creativity and cultural solidarity, where repair becomes a transformative act of care.

The truth is that Chicago and Mexican artists, and our community near and far, need your support to enact change that can only come from cross-cultural exchange and collaboration! 🫶

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Chicago, IL

Website

http://www.makelit.org/

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