LA LISTA: A Latinx Writers Podcast

A SELF-TAUGHT LATINA WRITER For our season seven finale, Sylvia Brindis shares growing up between Guatemala and Southern California, finding her way from USC film school and acting into writing by learning to embrace being a beginner, creating and starring in the kids' series Fluff Piece to teach media literacy, and developing a project about the CIA's role in Guatemala's 1954 coup and the fake-news campaign behind it.   Season 8 of the pod starts back up March 2027!   Instagram - @lalistapodcast   Music: Arriba Mami - Jingle Punks

This week: We close out the season hungover and toothless, Thulio serves Princess Diana street style before partying until 5 a.m., Rubén nearly goes straight after getting showered with compliments at a cocktail party serving poppers over ice, and a three-hour grifter documentary has Thulio gagged while Rubén wonders why we keep giving scammers the cinematic universe treatment. Plus our first annual Punch-Up-Palooza: Big Laundry, Ralph's discounted meat, billionaires who can't hire cashiers, AI-generated flyers, family Euro trips masquerading as solo trips, and Apple Cash's fraud department are all taken to task! See you in March, divas!!! La Lista Podcast host Rubén Mendive and writer Thulio DaSilva ditch the formal interviews and hop on the mic for quick, unfiltered conversations about their chaotic creative lives — covering new writing projects, hot takes on industry trends, dating disasters, and whatever discourse the algorithm served them that morning. Instagram - @lalistapodcast Music: Sunny Side - Airstream

A QUEER CHICANO WRITER FROM EAST LA, ÓRALE The podcast comes full circle for Episode 200 as first-ever guest Richard Villegas Jr. returns to talk about leaving a teaching career to pursue writing, weathering COVID and the writers' strike with writing as his North Star, turning his stories from two decades of public school teaching into the memoir Your a Fat Suckr Bich: Notes on the Merry but Perilous Work of Schoolteaching in Los Angeles, and continuing to build community through playwriting. Instagram - @lalistapodcast Music: Arriba Mami - Jingle Punks

This week: LA kicks off spooky season with 100-degree weather, Thulio sobs his way through Before It's Too Late, Rubén finds live theatre growing in a Topanga tinderbox, a COVID-conscious lesbian bar in Western Mass sends woke discourse into a tailspin, and we consider how logging off and shutting up for a while might actually be part of the creative process. Plus a Punch-Up on putting down Taylor Swift and picking up Tinashe... and businesses guilt-tripping customers into rebooking a $500 service. La Lista Podcast host Rubén Mendive and writer Thulio DaSilva ditch the formal interviews and hop on the mic for quick, unfiltered conversations about their chaotic creative lives — covering new writing projects, hot takes on industry trends, dating disasters, and whatever discourse the algorithm served them that morning. Instagram - @lalistapodcast Music: Sunny Side - Airstream

A MODERN FOLKLORIST LATINX WRITER Angela M. Sánchez shares growing up Chicanx in Los Angeles, how experiencing homelessness as a teenager shaped her commitment to telling stories about people too often overlooked, finding her creative voice through anime, comics, and fanfiction, going from education and philanthropy to building community with Latinx in Animation, writing for Primos, Dora, and the PAW Patrol universe, and turning a Los Angeles strip mall into a modern folktale with her animated short Spin Cycle. Instagram - @lalistapodcast Music: Arriba Mami - Jingle Punks

This week: Thulio closes out summer with a Y2K Palm Springs girls' trip, Rubén checks out Animal LA with seemingly every gay in the city, Flo from Progressive reveals herself at the Groundlings, Mr. Kansas earns honorary membership in the LGBTQ+ alphabet, and Hollywood's collapse sends the writers running back to live theater. Plus a Punch-Up on keeping Ryan Murphy away from your life rights... and rewarding spaces that build real community, because vibe-less branding is not it. La Lista Podcast host Rubén Mendive and writer Thulio DaSilva ditch the formal interviews and hop on the mic for quick, unfiltered conversations about their chaotic creative lives — covering new writing projects, hot takes on industry trends, dating disasters, and whatever discourse the algorithm served them that morning. Instagram - @lalistapodcast Music: Sunny Side - Airstream

A NO SABO ECUADORIAN-AMERICAN SAD BOY WRITER FROM QUEENS Christopher Moncayo-Torres shares growing up Ecuadorian American in Queens as a recovering no sabo and latchkey kid, discovering writing through college creative writing classes and New York theater spaces, building community through The Moth and Fail Better Arts, turning his relationship with his dad into the Hollywood Fringe show No Sabo, and bringing both parents onstage in Before It's Too Late to explore family, language, loneliness, and what it means to be seen. Instagram - @lalistapodcast Music: Arriba Mami - Jingle Punks

This week: A rainy Labor Day weekend ruins Thulio's beach fantasy, Animal enters the LA gay bar group chat, Olive Garden becomes a Mid-City gay haven with bottle service and an iPad baby, Stella Lefty is not beating the nepo-baby theft allegations, and HBO's Lanterns turns a gay Green Lantern into Yellowstone cosplay. Plus a Punch-Up on letting the Harry Potter reboot die already... and giving Brittany Murphy the Oscar she was owed. La Lista Podcast host Rubén Mendive and writer Thulio DaSilva ditch the formal interviews and hop on the mic for quick, unfiltered conversations about their chaotic creative lives — covering new writing projects, hot takes on industry trends, dating disasters, and whatever discourse the algorithm served them that morning. Instagram - @lalistapodcast Music: Sunny Side - Airstream

A CHILANGA MOM WRITER Natalia Mejía shares growing up in Mexico City, starting her TV career straight out of college writing Mexican telenovelas, moving to Los Angeles to get her MFA at UCLA and learn to write in English while keeping her voice, working in U.S. rooms like Snowfall and FBI: International, and exploring motherhood, contradiction, and women caught between worlds in her work. Instagram - @lalistapodcast Music: Arriba Mami - Jingle Punks

This week: Thulio makes his triumphant WeHo return and somehow wakes up in Glendale, Rubén gets accused of dining & dashing at Dave & Buster's, a pool day delivers Scorpio slander and a blown-out floatie, Margaret Qualley lets the dogs out in chopped Chanel, and Paramount's Warner Bros. Discovery bid becomes a billionaire hostage negotiation. Plus a Punch-Up on BYOT pool-party etiquette... and AirPods so bad they become anti-tech propaganda. La Lista Podcast host Rubén Mendive and writer Thulio DaSilva ditch the formal interviews and hop on the mic for quick, unfiltered conversations about their chaotic creative lives — covering new writing projects, hot takes on industry trends, dating disasters, and whatever discourse the algorithm served them that morning. Instagram - @lalistapodcast Music: Sunny Side - Airstream