Ana Castillo

writer

Ana Castillo is a celebrated poet, novelist, short story writer, and esaayist. Castillo is a prolific author whose work has been critically acclaimed and widely anthologized in the United States and abroad. Castillos books include the novel, *The Mixquiahuala Letters* (Bilingual Review Press, 1986; Doubleday, 1992), *Sapogonia* (Bilingual Review Press, 1990), *So Far From God* (Norton, 1993), *Massacre of the Dreamers: Reflections on Mexican-Indian Women in the United States 500 Years After the Conquest* (University of New Mexico, 1992). As a poet Castillo is the author of several works, including the chapbooks *Otro Canto* (1977) and *The Invitation* (1979); these were followed by several volumes of poetry which include *Women Are Not Roses* (Arte Publico, 1984), and *My Father Was a Toltec* (West End Press, 1988). Most recently she published *Water Color Women, Opaque Men*, a novel in verse (Curbstone Press, 2005). Castillo has coordinated an anthology on la Virgen de Guadalupe entitled *La Diosa de las Americas/Goddess of the Americas* (Riverside/Putnam, 1996). Castillo, along with Norma Alarcon and others, co-founded the literary magazine *Third Woman*; she has since been a contributing editor to *Third Woman* and *Humanizarte* magazines. She was a community activist throughout the 1970s. Throughout this period, Castillo taught English as a Second Language, Mexican and Mexican American history in community colleges in the Chicago and San Franisco areas. She returned to California from 1986 to 1990, where she taught feminist journal writing, womens studies, creative writing, and Chicano literature at various colleges and universities. From 1989 to 1990 Castillo was a Dissertation Fellow in the Chicano Studies Department at the University of California, Santa Barbara. It was there that she continued her work on a new collection of poetry, *I Ask the Impossible* (Anchor Books, 2001).