Luis is also a novelist/memoirist/short story writer/children’s book writer/essayist as well as a community & urban peace activist, mentor, healer, youth & arts advocate, husband, father, grandfather, and great-grandfather.

He has 16 books in all genres, including the best-selling memoir, “Always Running, La Vida Loca, Gang Days in L.A.” His latest memoir is the sequel, “It Calls You Back: An Odyssey Through Love, Addiction, Revolutions, and Healing.” His last poetry book is “Borrowed Bones” from Curbstone Books/Northwestern University Press. In 2020, Seven Stories Press released his first book of essays, “From Our Land to Our Land: Essays, Journeys & Imaginings from a Native Xicanx Writer.”

Luis is founding editor of Tia Chucha Press, now in its 30th year, and co-founder/president of Tia Chucha’s Centro Cultural & Bookstore in the San Fernando Valley. He has traveled across the United States, Canada, Mexico, Central America, South America, Europe, and Japan to speak, do poetry readings, indigenous ceremonies, or reportage over the past 40 years. Dedicated to his indigenous roots and Native American spirituality, Luis has a Mexika name: Mixcoatl Itztlacuiloh. With his wife Trini Tlazhoteotl he has a podcast called “The Hummingbird Cricket Hour”–http://hchpodcast.libsyn.com/