I grew up a 'no sabo' kid in a semi-rural Pacific Northwest county — a half Chilean white girl with a funny accent. Too gringa for my mother's side of the family and too something-else for the other kids at school. I was shy and had my books. Jack London's stories were the adventure and companionship I couldn't find on my own. Isabel Allende gave me a glimpse into the other half of my culture that was only reflected back to me in my mother.

I found my way to Saint Edward's University in Austin, where I grew up in all the ways that mattered. I studied traditional photography — the black and white darkroom kind, stinking of sulphur and surrounded by chemical trays — and learned to see color through its absence.

By the time I graduated, I was restless. The Navy felt like the kind of adventure I'd grown up reading about. I enlisted as a mass communication specialist and specialized as a military broadcaster. When homesickness set in, I returned to writing: essays about family, memory, and legacy that would become the foundation of the writing I do today.

Those essays grew into short fiction that moves between literary realism, speculative fiction, and magical realism. After sharpening my craft at Harvard Extension School, I was accepted as an MFA candidate at Randolph College, where I'm working on my first book.