8.15.15 at the Gallery at Avalon Island
Reading from her story collection, Oye What I’m Gonna Tell You
Cecilia Rodríguez Milanés was born in New Jersey to Cuban parents. Educated in Miami and New York, her fiction, nonfiction, and poetry appear in numerous journals and anthologies, including Literary Mama, The Bilingual Review/La revista bilingüe, Kweli Journal, Guernica, Letras Femeninas, and The Norton Anthology of Latino Literature. Her short story collections, Oye What I’m Gonna Tell You and Marielitos, Balseros, and Other Exiles were #4 and #5 on the Guardian’s list of 10 of the best books to help understand Cuba. Everyday Chica, winner of the 2010 Longleaf Press Poetry Prize was followed by Everyday Chica, Music and More, a poetry CD set to Caribbean folk music was released in 2011. She is the recipient of an individual artist grant from United Arts of Central Florida and was the 2009 Theodore Morrison Fiction Fellow at the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. She is Associate Professor of English at the University of Central Florida in Orlando where she lives with her family.