Advertise on podcast: LA LISTA: A Latinx Writers Podcast

AN INSECURE FREAKY LATINA WRITER For our Season 6 finale, Anna Salinas shares growing up in the conservative retirement town of Sarasota, how teaching art gave her the confidence to pursue improv at UCB, building Latino community with her team Menudo and the show Feliz Hour, breaking into TV on Human Resources, Mo, and Loot, and how her webcomic Bad Comix by Anna and short films helped her break out as a filmmaker! Season 7 of the pod starts back up March 2026! Instagram - @lalistapodcast Music: Arriba Mami - Jingle Punks

A LATINO WRITER WHO WRITES ABOUT JOY & GRIEF Yosimar Reyes (Ep. 113) is back to talk about bringing his solo show Prieto to its LA premiere (Nov 20–23), navigating the loss of his grandmother with the help of therapy, reflecting on undocumented life in a shifting political landscape, and creating theater rooted in joy, grief, and humor! Instagram - @lalistapodcast Music: Arriba Mami - Jingle Punks

AN AWKWARD DOMINICAN YORK WRITER Stephanie Rodriguez shares growing up between the Bronx and Tampa, hustling her way into art school, creating her graphic novel Doodles from the Boogie Down, transitioning from comics to screenwriting, moving to LA with a New York hustle, and breaking into children's media through the Fred Rogers Productions Writers' Neighborhood program! Instagram - @lalistapodcast Music: Arriba Mami - Jingle Punks

AN ANIMATED GAY LATINX WRITER/PRODUCER James Eason-Garcia shares growing up Mexican-American in Colorado, coming out as the first openly gay student at his high school, rising from a PA for Elena of Avalor to co-executive producer for "Marvel's Iron Man and His Awesome Friends," and diving into preschool animation through visual storytelling and lessons in kindness! Instagram - @lalistapodcast Music: Arriba Mami - Jingle Punks

A BUBBLY & COLORFUL SPOOKY LATINA WRITER Montserrat Luna-Ballantyne shares growing up between Monterrey and Ventura County, leaving the Mexican Consulate to break into TV with Mayans MC, surviving Zoom rooms and the strike, and finding new creative joy through Film Independent's Project Involve with her horror/psychological thriller short In Sickness and in Health! Instagram - @lalistapodcast Music: Arriba Mami - Jingle Punks

A SMART-ASS TEJANA WRITER Marcelina Chavira shares growing up in Texas with Mexican and white roots, moving from anthropology into sketch and voiceover, writing for Amazon's Upload in the thick of our AI anxieties, bringing her Texas upbringing to the King of the Hill continuation, and shaping a voice grounded in magical realism and postcolonial identity in our current climate! Instagram - @lalistapodcast Music: Arriba Mami - Jingle Punks

A PROUDLY FORMULAIC IMMIGRANT WRITER Jorge Molina shares growing up gay in Cuernavaca, Mexico and dreaming of Hollywood from afar, skipping the traditional assistant path after USC due to visa constraints, building a career curating shorts at top queer and Latino film festivals and demystifying the submission process for filmmakers, and channeling his whodunit obsession into the Gina Torres-led audio drama A Murder in Montecito! Instagram - @lalistapodcast Music: Arriba Mami - Jingle Punks

A PROUD LATE-BLOOMER, DAUGHTER TO IMMIGRANTS, NOW TRAUMATIZED & SEARCHING FOR A HYPNOTIST Helen Fernandez shares her upbringing between Phoenix, San Antonio, and Mexico, navigating toxic assistant gigs and breaking through via the NBC TV Writers Program, how getting staffed on Happy's Place and not being asked back taught her the highs and heartbreaks of working in TV, and creating the live comedy show Single Riders Only to explore the absurdity of modern dating! Instagram - @lalistapodcast Music: Arriba Mami - Jingle Punks

A QUEER LATINO-INDIGENOUS DRAG QUEEN TURNED FILMMAKER Reuben Bernardo Qhapaq shares his journey from Ecuador to San Francisco, surviving chronic illness and a rigid adoptive home, finding community as a teenage runaway in the city's underground Latino drag scene, going from high school dropout to AFI graduate, and why his upcoming short Esta Noche honors the queer elders who helped him survive. Instagram - @lalistapodcast Music: Arriba Mami - Jingle Punks

A PROUD QUEER, AFRO-NUYORICAN WRITER, ACTOR, & PRODUCER Ronald Hinton shares growing up with his grandmother in NYC's Upper West Side, reclaiming pride in his roots through writing, launching his Queerty-nominated web series Natives to spotlight queer life in public housing, and building community through the Queer Voices: NYC Film Festival. Instagram - @lalistapodcast Music: Arriba Mami - Jingle Punks

A TEXAN PERUVIAN LATINA WRITER OBSESSED WITH FANTASTICALLY FLAWED WOMEN Alessandra Jara Del Castillo shares growing up between Peru and Texas, discovering screenwriting at UT Austin after starting in journalism, breaking into writers' rooms through Twitter and mentorship, channeling her love of messy family dynamics into her scripts, and gaining rare production access as an assistant thanks to generous showrunners. Instagram - @lalistapodcast Music: Arriba Mami - Jingle Punks

A MIXED-RACE WANNABE RAPPER DIY LATINO FILMMAKER Kahlil Maskati shares growing up half Puerto Rican and half Indian in New Jersey, finding his creative voice through rapping and filmmaking, getting staffed on So Help Me Todd after the Paramount Writers Mentoring Program, and how making his indie feature Do I Shock You Like Lightning? led him to direct a new Chicano detective short set in Bakersfield. Instagram - @lalistapodcast Music: Arriba Mami - Jingle Punks

A BOUNDLESS & LIMITLESS LATINX WRITER Yohanna Baez shares growing up Dominican in L.A., how a short doc on climate justice in her native DR sparked her storytelling path, her move to NYC to pursue the indie route, and turning All Night Deli—a genre-blending audio series about bodegas, designer drugs, and interdimensional portals—into a podcast, video game, and manga. Instagram - @lalistapodcast Music: Arriba Mami - Jingle Punks

A QUEER ECUADORIAN WRITER FROM QUEENS Sebastián Rea shares his journey from Ecuador to Queens, his hustle as a teen party promoter, working with Tribeca and Jennifer Lopez's Nuyorican Productions, and how the NBC TV Writers Program led him to his first staff job on Peacock's upcoming limited series Devil in Disguise: John Wayne Gacy. Instagram - @lalistapodcast Music: Arriba Mami - Jingle Punks

A BOSS BABE LATINX WRITER WHO BUILT HER OWN LADDER & HELPS OTHERS CLIMB UP IT Tawnya Benavides Bhattacharya shares what it was like growing up in a tiny farming town in Eastern Washington, how uncovering family secrets led her to embrace her Mexican roots later in life, why she founded the screenwriting school Script Anatomy, and how a relentless work ethic helped her staff on shows like Bel-Air, A Million Little Things, Ginny & Georgia, and My Life with the Walter Boys! Instagram - @lalistapodcast Music: Arriba Mami - Jingle Punks