About the Author
I am a first generation Cuban-American, born in
Hialeah, FL. My mother immigrated with her parents in
the early 50’s, before the revolution that changed the
island forever. As a family, they returned to the
island only once more, for a quick visit that would
have to last them a lifetime, in the months before the
revolution. My father came to this country as a
teenager, as part of the airlifts that took place in
the late 60’s.
Growing up in Miami was, for me, like being raised by a large, extended, exiled family. Even though most of my family immigrated before the revolution, the effects of exile were still part of my everyday life, as were the stories (both fantastical and real) that kept the memory of the Cuba-that-was alive. I attended a Catholic, bilingual school where we sang the Cuban anthem then followed it up with the “Star Spangled Banner.” I knew that the capital of Cuba was Havana long before I had ever heard of Washington D.C. and I could list all of my grandmother’s nine brothers and sisters with ease, ticking off those impossibly long and beautiful names as if they belonged to people I knew (most of them were, or still are, in Cuba). I shared my bedroom with a host of cousins who defected, young and old, and remember how they hid food under my bed, or how they cried when they got their first jobs or moved into their first American apartments.
As a Cuban-American, I am in a unique position to both understand what it is to be truly, legally, deep down American, and to be Cuban, exiled, and nostalgic for a past I never experienced except through storytelling-the stories of my family, friends, of the old women in Miami’s hospital waiting rooms, and the old men who tell you their personal cuentos of exile as you wait in line together at the bank. I haven’t met a Cuban yet who didn’t have a story to tell.
I currently live in Auburn, Alabama, and teach English at Auburn University. I live with my husband, Orlando Acevedo, an assistant professor of organic chemistry at Auburn University.
Publication Credits
Fiction:
“Blue Exile,” short story, American Quarterly Review, 1999.
- Nominated for the Pushcart Prize
- Winner of the Fred Shaw Fiction Prize
“The Tourist’s Gift,” short story, Prairie Schooner, Fall 2003.
“The Storyteller and the Little Revolution,” short story, Cimarron Review, Winter 2003.
Love and Ghost Letters, a novel, St. Martin's Press, 2005.
- 2006 Latino Literacy Now Award
- Binghamton University John Gardner Fiction Book Award Finalist for 2006
- Connecticut Book Award Finalist for 2006
“A Love that Hurts,” short story, Chattahoochee Review, Winter-Spring 2006.
Poetry:
“The Longest Walk,” poem, The Litchfield Review, Spring 2004.
- Winner of The Litchfield Review First Prize for Poetry
Creative Nonfiction:
“Snow in August,” travel piece featuring New Zealand, TravelLady Magazine, June 2007. Read Article
“Living Down Sur -- ¡Upa!,” Multilingual Children's Association, June 2007. Read Article
“Picking Up the Rhythm,” Multilingual Children's Association, August 2007. Read Article
“Cuban Ghosts,” essay, Apple Valley Review: A Journal of Contemporary Literature, Volume 2, Number 2 Fall 2007. Read Article
Education
I attended the MFA creative writing program at the University of Miami on a James Michener Fellowship. While there, I wrote the short story “Blue Exile,” which won the Fred Shaw Fiction Prize in 1998.
My mentor, and friend, is Lester Goran, author of many books, including Tales from the Irish Club.
Fulbright Connections
Fulbright Memorial Fund Awardee, Japan, 2001
Fulbright Hays Award, New Zealand, 2004