Ivelisse Rodriguez

Born in Arecibo, Puerto Rico, Ivelisse Rodriguez grew up in Holyoke, Massachusetts. She earned a BA in English from Columbia University, an MFA in creative writing from Emerson College, and a PhD in English-creative writing from the University of Illinois at Chicago. Her debut short story collection, Love War Stories, is a 2019 PEN/Faulkner finalist and a 2018 Foreword Reviews INDIES finalist. She has also published fiction in All about Skin: Short Fiction by Women of Color, Obsidian, Kweli, the Boston Review, and other publications. She was a senior fiction editor at Kweli and is a Kimbilio fellow and a VONA/Voices alum.