Estella Gonzalez was born and raised in East Los Angeles which inspires her writing. Her work has appeared in Kweli Journal, The Acentos Review and Huizache.  Her fiction and poetry have been anthologized in Latinos in Lotusland: An Anthology of Contemporary Southern California Literature by Bilingual Press and Nasty Women Poets: An Unapologetic Anthology of Subversive Verse by Lost Horse Press. She received a Pushcart Prize “Special Mention” and was selected a “Reading Notable” for The Best American Non-Required Reading. Her debut short story collection, Chola Salvation, was published April 30, 2021 by Arte Público Press.

Ivelisse Rodriguez’s debut short story collection Love War Stories is a 2019 PEN/Faulkner finalist and a 2018 Foreword Reviews INDIES finalist. She has published fiction in the Boston Review, Obsidian, Kweli, the Bilingual Review, Aster(ix), and other publications. She is a contributing arts editor for the Boston Review, where she acquires fiction. She was a senior fiction editor at Kweli and is a Kimbilio fellow and a VONA/Voices alum. She earned an M.F.A. in creative writing from Emerson College and a Ph.D. in English-creative writing from the University of Illinois at Chicago. To learn more about Ivelisse, visit: www.ivelisserodriguez.com.

Estella Gonzalez on Chola Salvation with Ivelisse Rodriguez