Angie Cruz

Dominicana grew out of Angie Cruz's mother's life: married at fifteen to a much older man and brought from the Dominican Republic to New York in the 1960s. Cruz turned that into Ana Canción's story, and the novel reached the Women's Prize shortlist in 2020. How Not to Drown in a Glass of Water, three years later, is built entirely from twelve appointments. Cara Romero, laid off from a factory job in her mid-fifties, is sent to a senior workforce programme in Washington Heights, and what she tells the young counsellor across the desk runs well past her employment history into the son she is estranged from and the block she will not leave. Cruz was raised in Washington Heights herself, went from the LaGuardia arts high school to the Fashion Institute of Technology, then to an English degree at SUNY Binghamton and an MFA at New York University. Soledad appeared in 2001 and Let It Rain Coffee in 2005. She co-founded the journal Aster(ix) and teaches in the MFA writing programme at Columbia University.