Tejana, estadounidense, novelista

— I know what it is like to be poor.

Since I was fourteen, I have worked in restaurants, bars, hospitals, eviction courts, adult residential centers, and classrooms. .I have lived in Oregon, Maryland, Texas, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, New York, Mexico, Egypt, France, and Denmark for varying amounts of time and with varying success. I have been unemployed, out of work, homeless, uninsured, and finally gainfully employed. And I remember what it is like to be hungry.

When I was in high school, the city police entered a house rented by immigrants and shot and killed every member of the family, even (by accident) a baby. It was not covered on the radio or in the major papers. It was the wrong house. I learned early that growing up Hispanic in Texas was deadly. And that telling our stories was necessary.

I completed an MA in Writing at Johns Hopkins, an MA in History of Medicine at UW-Madison, a PhD in Literature and creative Writing at the University of Southern Mississippi. I taught composition, created a local community theater group, freelanced as a science writer/translator, worked as a research editor for a math and science center, taught in Egypt at the American University, served for 8 years as assistant professor in environmental humanities in New York State, and developed ALLUVIAN, a now-defunct digital journal of poetry, art, and fiction..

I have been awarded writing fellowships at Tin House Workshop, Vermont Studio Center, The Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Moulin à Nef in France. I won an AWP Intro Journals Award. My fiction has been published in New World Writing, Artful Dodge, and Rum Punch Press, among others. My chapbook of poetry was published by Dancing Girl Press. I am actively querying my novel SNAKEBITE (literary fiction), and midway through draftng a second novel, WAGER ME RED.