Melissa Castillo Garsow

Melissa is an Mexican-American writer, journalist and active scholar in the fields of English literature, American Studies, African American Studies, and Latin American/Latino Studies. At Yale, she focuses on the study of Afro-Latino history and culture in the 20th Century, presenting at numerous conferences around the world. Her short stories, articles and poetry have been published or are forthcoming in numerous journals including Acentos Review, Hispanic Culture Review, El Diario/La Prensa, The Bilingual Review, Women’s Studies, and Words. Beats. Life: The Global Journal of Hip-Hop Culture. She is the co-editor with Jason Nichols of La Verdad: The Reader of Hip Hop Latinidades, forthcoming with University of Ohio State Press Global Latino/a Studies, as well as the editor of a forthcoming anthology of Afro-Latino Poetry with Arte Público Press. Her first novel, Pure Bronx, was released by Augustus Publishing in Fall 2013 and her first volume of poetry Coatlicue Eats the Apple with VerseSeven.