ESSAYS & INTERVIEWS
This page contains affiliate links; if you make a purchase through my links, I earn a small commission at no additional cost to you.
ESSAYS
"Literatura, Música, y (Huracán) María: Reflections from the Diaspora"
VIDA Review
August 28, 2018
print version in:
Boricua en la Luna: An Anthology of Puerto Rican Voices
December 2019
"Last fall, our son turned one.
Days later Hurricane María ripped through Puerto Rico.
I could not reach my parents for six long days."
Days later Hurricane María ripped through Puerto Rico.
I could not reach my parents for six long days."
"Date with LA: Retro Row Helps New Yorker Adapt to Long Beach”
L.A. Parent
July 31, 2018
"We savored our wine, and the end of our date, on the front patio, people watching and listening to music from across the street. We love our neighborhood – the diversity, the energy, the way it feels like a true community – and we were grateful for this excuse to enjoy it together. ¡Salud!"
"The Power of the Post-It: Writing My Life into Existence"
Women Who Submit
March 9, 2016
"In the end, clearly articulating what I really want—in writing— helps keep me focused and striving. I write towards those goals, and I submit towards those hopes, and I think of new projects with those aspirations in mind, and I make love open to those dreams. And I move forward. And I write my life into existence."
"The Art of Low Stakes Daily Writing and How it Can Transform Your Year"
The Practice of Creativity with Michele T. Berger
January 18, 2016
"I’m not brilliant, or inspired, or awake enough every day to write something meaningful, and with Low Stakes Daily Writing I don’t have to be. Each day I connect with the page. Each day I promise a few moments—however brief—to my writing. To myself."
"After Yale"
essay in Wise Latinas: Writers on Higher Education
Such a wonderful and necessary collection. Order your copy today!
"Here was a Puerto Rican professor who understood my three cultures: mainland, island, and academia-land without words. I had found my newest mentor and a piece of home at Yale..."
"I finish my poem. After the show, senior after senior approaches me to thank me for my words. They tell me about their own struggles to write their essays and to make them meaningful to their lives and experiences. Over and over I hear what I knew was the case for my classmates and for myself. We saw our senior essays not as just another assignment, but also as an opportunity to create knowledge about our respective communities and lives..."
From the Publisher: "Wise Latinas is a collection of personal essays addressing the varied landscape of the Latina experience in higher education. For some Latinas, college, where they are vastly underrepresented, is the first time they are immersed in American culture outside their homes—and where the values of two cultures often clash. Wise Latinas is in part a response to this widening gap.
Featuring acclaimed writers such as Sandra Cisneros, Norma Cantú, and Julia Alvarez, to name a few, Wise Latinas shows that there is no one Latina college experience. With thoughtful and engaging pieces, Wise Latinas provides a platform for Latina writers to share their experiences in higher education and gives a voice to the many Latina women who have taken risks, embraced the new, confronted change, and maintained (and in some cases found) their roots."
Editor: Jennifer De Leon
University of Nebraska Press. 2014.
"Here was a Puerto Rican professor who understood my three cultures: mainland, island, and academia-land without words. I had found my newest mentor and a piece of home at Yale..."
"I finish my poem. After the show, senior after senior approaches me to thank me for my words. They tell me about their own struggles to write their essays and to make them meaningful to their lives and experiences. Over and over I hear what I knew was the case for my classmates and for myself. We saw our senior essays not as just another assignment, but also as an opportunity to create knowledge about our respective communities and lives..."
From the Publisher: "Wise Latinas is a collection of personal essays addressing the varied landscape of the Latina experience in higher education. For some Latinas, college, where they are vastly underrepresented, is the first time they are immersed in American culture outside their homes—and where the values of two cultures often clash. Wise Latinas is in part a response to this widening gap.
Featuring acclaimed writers such as Sandra Cisneros, Norma Cantú, and Julia Alvarez, to name a few, Wise Latinas shows that there is no one Latina college experience. With thoughtful and engaging pieces, Wise Latinas provides a platform for Latina writers to share their experiences in higher education and gives a voice to the many Latina women who have taken risks, embraced the new, confronted change, and maintained (and in some cases found) their roots."
Editor: Jennifer De Leon
University of Nebraska Press. 2014.
"A Puro Puños"
Encuentro al Sur
February 12, 2010
"My Papi comes from caña. And rios. And caserios. From mariscos. From la costa de una isla he still calls casa.
1968. Don Cornelio el primero wakes him early early to cut cane. Rough touch. Tongue sweet. Papi up up up, early early. Only early risers live up to big names like Cornelio el terzero. The cock crows and there is work to be done."
1968. Don Cornelio el primero wakes him early early to cut cane. Rough touch. Tongue sweet. Papi up up up, early early. Only early risers live up to big names like Cornelio el terzero. The cock crows and there is work to be done."
INTERVIEWS
"Poet Li Yun Alvarado Talks the Benefits of Deadlines, Knowing the Business, and Amplifying Others"
Interview with Gaia Zine editor Isabel Tiburcio
March 16, 2022
"Poet Li Yun Alvarado on the importance of knowing the business side of creative industries, amplifying the work of others, and finding a community you can thrive in creatively."
"Words or Water: An Interview With Nuyorican Poet LiYun Alvarado"
Interview with Suset Laboy
April 11, 2016
"The poems in Words or Water explore relationships—especially intimate relationships and intergenerational family relationships. Puerto Rico and New York both feature prominently, they provide the backdrop and are sometimes in the foreground of so much of my work because they are the places I’ve lived in the longest. In keeping with the strong family theme, I asked Daniela Alvarado, my 15-year-old second cousin, for permission to use her beautiful artwork for the cover of Words or Water."
