Hello
A California guy who ended up in Massachusetts, my career has arced from community organizer to academic to writer. It's been a fun trip.
My Story
Three of my grandparents were born in Mexico, but I was born in San Jose, California and grew up in Silicon Valley. After graduating with a bachelor's degree in environmental studies, I headed east to get a Master of City Planning at Harvard. I fell in love with Boston and Cape Cod and have lived here my entire adult life.
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My first job was as a community organizer, then I moved on to political organizing. After working at the Massachusetts State House and Boston City Hall, I ran a small environmental nonprofit. That led to returning to school to earn a doctorate in Environmental Health from Boston University.
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I spent several years working at Boston University, Brown, Northeastern and Tufts. Specializing in the intersection between the built environment and health, I wrote a textbook and a history of the relationship between architecture, urban planning, and public health. This led to a history of Boston's South End, then other history books. These led to my writing fiction, founding a literary magazine, LatineLit, and a publishing house, Shawmut Peninsula Press.
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It has been an interesting journey.
My writing
I started writing non-fiction but have branched out to fiction because there are ideas and truths taht are better told through stories than data driven articles. I enjoy both.
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My nonfiction includes academic and nonacademic writing. In addition to a textbook and another academic book, I have had articles published in a range of journals including Environmental Health Perspectives and the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). I have been fascinated by urban history for years, which drew me to writing histories on the Boston and Provincetown topics. The last history book was The Hub of the Gay Universe: AN LGBTQ History of Boston, Provincetown, and Beyond. The next will be Last Call: Boston.
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Nonfiction research and writing is rewarding, but while researching the history of urban renewal in Boston's New York Streets neighborhood, I realized that there were stories to be told that couldn't be accommodated by the demands of nonfiction. Thus, I turned to writing fiction.
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Over the past several years, I have had almost twenty short stories published in magazines ranging from The Fictional Cafe to The Latino Review. A select number of these, and additional ones, will be in the forthcoming Provincetown Stories, due out March 1, 2026.
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I am currently at work on a novel, an update of Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Ernest.
My editing
Growing up in a bilingual household, I was surrounded by Spanish. (To this day when I hear the song Sabor a Mi, I think of my father and tear up. As a kid, I read Don Quixote in Spanish as well as works such as the epic Argentine poem, Martin Fierro. As I wrote fiction, I realized there was a dearth of Latinx literature outlets and decided there was a need for another literary magazine that featured writing by and about Latinx people. As result, LatineLit was born. Late next year an anthology of stories from the magazine's first four years will be published.
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Editing a magazine is a joy, except that space constraints mean that some wonderful writing has to be rejected. The magazine has become one of the most important outlets for Latinx writing in the US.
My publishing
Though Latinx people make up twenty percent of the US population, they comprise just a tiny percentage of published writers. It is extremely difficult for Latinx people to get published by mainstream presses. To counteract this problem, I started Shawmut Peninsula Press, named after the native word for the place where Boston now stands. As the press grew, I realized there were other writers who deserved to be published and SPP is publishing a wide range of authors from across the country.
My interests
I am involved in many other activities besides writing, editing, and publishing. I currently serve on the boards of the Boston Lyric Opera (CO-chair of the Board of Advisors) and the South End Historical Society.
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Along with my husband, we strongly believe in supporting the arts and are proud contributors to the Provincetown Theater, the Provincetown Art Association Museum (PAAM), and the Speakeasy Stage Company of Boston. If I am not on the trails of the Cape Cod National Seashore or enjoying a stroll through Boston's Public Garden, you might run into me at the Boston Symphony Orchestra or the Metropolitan Opera