It is my pleasure to introduce you to Gabrielle Lucille Fuentes, a remarkable member of the Latinx Literary Community in the DC area. The author and I met at the University of Maryland, where she teaches creative writing and literature. Since we met, she has welcomed me to the UMD creative writing community. It has also been fun to run into each other while taking selfies with Cristina Rivera Garza.

Fuentes grew up in a Cuban-Irish-American family in Wisconsin. She has received fellowships from Yaddo, Hedgebrook, the Millay Colony, and the Blue Mountain Center. …

I met professor Laura Demaría before I studied at the University of Maryland. Professor Saúl Sosnowski introduced her to me, pointing out that her debut novel St. Louis Blues (2018) will be published soon. We talked briefly about her book, but the thought of being a scholar and a creative writer in the same lifetime stayed with me. Two years later, I finally read Blues during quarantine, regretting not doing it sooner.

St. Louis Blues tells the story of an international graduate student group navigating life in the United States and their passion for literature. The narrator reminisces her life…

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a writer in possession of a ‘good’ Twitter account, must be in want of another writer friend, especially if both are Latinas living in the DMV area. As Jane Austen-ish as it sounds, Yohanca Delgado and I met through Twitter. We probably followed each other because we had literary circles in common, and we briefly met during a special edition of Lit on H St Book Club featuring Angie Cruz (make sure to check it out is led by Lupita Reads). …

This article was originally published by the Latin American Studies Center’s El Foro. You can see it here in Issue 2.

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The Supreme Court will be ruling the future of DACA Recipients any day now. Last November, the Supreme Court heard arguments for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program in Washington, D.C. The immigration policy started back in 2012 intending to provide deferred action and work authorization to certain people who came to the United States as children.

The Obama-era amnesty program has been a political conversation for quite a few years…

Let’s fly away from the DMV area, so I can introduce you to Boston-based YA author Francisco X. Stork. It’s difficult to be unbiased about his work because he is currently my writing mentor thanks to Latinx in Publishing and he has become a great friend and supporter (plus I love everything he does). I’ve been aching to write about him since I first read Disappeared, the prequel to his new book. Disappeared is a gripping story about two siblings who have to escape to the United States. My urge to praise him is genuine though. …

This pandemic is not stopping Salvadoran Jeannette Noltenius from promoting art and culture in the community. In fact, her reach has amplified worldwide now that she migrated her events to an online platform.

After retiring, Jeannette created Casa de la Cultura El Salvador in Washington, D.C. in 2015 with a group of Salvadoran Americans to educate, promote, and celebrate Salvadoran and Salvadoran American arts, culture, history, and development. Casa de la Cultura El Salvador is a 100% volunteer effort. “We all work for free to give joy, reflection, and respite to the world!” she says.

Jeannette received a MA in…

April is officially the National Poetry Month since 1996. This year, some of us are celebrating behind our computers, phones and, I hope, behind some books. In Washington, D.C., we are proud to have a unique museum, American Poetry Museum (APM), dedicated to celebrating poetry, promoting literacy, and fostering meaningful dialogue. Samuel Miranda is one of the key writers making all of this possible.

The Puerto Rican poet has been teaching since 1992 and he currently manages the programming at APM, where he curates a reading series and exhibition series. When asked about himself, he says, “I am a multidisciplinary…

To call Sofía Estévez just a poet is an understatement. The Dominican poet is also a Spanish teacher, translator, editor, a short story writer, and a mother. She earned an MA in Foreign Languages at George Mason University and lives in Alexandria with her son Felipe and her dog Marcella.

Last year, she published her first collection of poems, Los abrojos del bien, and participated in the anthology Mirando al Sur, Antología desde el exilio with two short stories. Her poems have appeared in local newspapers and magazines. Sofia has also presented her work in Mexico, El Salvador, and the…