Born in the US to Cuban parents, R Cielo Cruz was raised by a single mother in a multi-racial community in North Miami. Cruz draws deeply from this experience, as well as their close ties to the Caribbean, in their writing. Stories and essays by Cruz have been published in Black Warrior Review, Colorlines, hipMama, Bridge the Gulf Project and the anthology Mamaphonic. Cruz is a 2017 & 2020 VONA Voices Fellow. In 2018, they founded Racial Justice Reads. They were a Paper Machine artist in residence in October 2022 and produced Paper Portals: A Braided Spellbook this past summer as a result. This year Cruz was a part of the Speculative Fiction workshop with Rivers Solomon at the 2024 RWW Winter Writers’ Retreat for Storytellers of Color. They live in New Orleans and have an MA in Latin American studies.
