I.A.IA. creative writing alumni Jamie Figueroa and Kyce Bello team up for a Saturday afternoon literary feast. Figueroa reads from her well acclaimed memoir, Mother Island, and Bello reads from her newly released collection of poetry, Far Country. A can’t miss event.
Jamie Figueroa is the author of the critically acclaimed novel Brother, Sister, Mother, Explorer, which “brims with spellbinding prose, magical elements, and wounded, full-hearted characters that nearly jump off the page” (Publishers Weekly). Brother, Sister, Mother, Explorer was longlisted for the Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize and shortlisted for Reading the West Debut Fiction. Faculty in the MFA Creative Writing program at the Institute of American Indian Arts, her writing has appeared in American Short Fiction, Emergence Magazine, Boston Review, Elle, McSweeney’s, The New York Times, and Kweli Journal, among others. Figueroa’s memoir in essays, Mother Island: A Daughter Claims Puerto Rico, received a starred Kirkus review and was named among the LA Times “6 books to shake off colonialism and rethink our Latino stories.” In addition, Mother Island has been included in the “most anticipated” and “best non-fiction books of 2024” lists by SheReads, Ms. Magazine, Elle, Lupita Reads, and Hispanic Executive. Figueroa is Boricua (Afro-Taíno) by way of Ohio and is a longtime resident of northern New Mexico.
A Certified Clinical Herbalist and Registered Nurse, Kyce Bello holds an interdisciplinary degree in Southwest Studies and Creative Writing from the University of New Mexico, and an MFA in poetry from the Institute of American Indian Arts. Kyce’s debut poetry collection, Refugia, was winner of Interim’s Test Site Poetry Series and received a New Mexico/Arizona Book Award in 2020. Her second poetry collection, Far Country, was released in March, 2025 by University of Nevada Press. She also edited the anthology The Return of the River: Writers, Scholars, and Citizens Speak on Behalf of the Santa Fe River, a work of literary activism.
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