Discipline/Field: Fiction
Based in: Los Angeles, CA
About: Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo is the daughter of Mexican immigrants and author of two poetry collections. She is the director of Women Who Submit and teaches poetry and creative writing with Antioch University, MFA and UCLA Extension. At Yefe Nof, she plans to finish a new draft of her first novel, imagining the exciting, fun, and just alternate ending for her main character and giving Latina readers, and many others, an opportunity to see themselves as empowered, adventurous, and imaginative individuals.
Project Title: Dear Lupe is a Mexican-American parallel to John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men which tells the story of 14-year-old Nora Davila, the daughter of Mexican migrant farmers who writes fan letters to her favorite starlet, Lupe Vélez. She confides in Lupe her plans for leaving the muddy shacks of campesino life for the sparkle and shine of Hollywood. Through these letters, Nora takes agency over her story and her life in a way Steinbeck’s novella, and even the times, never allowed.