We are thrilled to welcome Dr. Melissa Castillo Planas to our Wednesday series of ten minute live Zoom readings.

7:30 - 7:40 pm (New York time)

Hosted by Thomas Fucaloro

The readings will be streamed live to our facebook page and you may also register to watch directly on Zoom. Registration for Zoom viewing is available through Eventbrite. Please register before 7:15 pm on the day of the event.

Dr. Melissa Castillo Planas is an Associate Professor of English at Lehman College in the Bronx, NY specializing in Latinx Literature and Culture. She is the editor of the anthology, ¡Manteca!: An Anthology of Afro-Latin@ Poets, co-editor of La Verdad: An International Dialogue on Hip Hop Latinidades, the author of the poetry collection Coatlicue Eats the Apple, and co-author of the novel, Pure Bronx. Her most recent scholarly book published with Rutgers University Press in March 2020, A Mexican State of Mind: New York City and the New Borderlands of Culture, examines the creative worlds and cultural productions of Mexican migrants in New York City. Her second book of poetry, Chingona Rules was released by Finishing Line Press in September 2021.

Her short stories, articles, poetry and essays have been published in numerous collections such as Afro-Latinos in Movement: Critical Approaches to Blackness and Transnationalism in the Americas (Palgrave, 2016), The Routledge Companion to Latino/a Popular Culture (Routledge, 2016), The Routledge Companion to Gender and Sexuality in Latin America (Routledge, 2018); and diverse scholarly and media publications. She has given invited lectures and poetry readings all over the world including Jadavpur University (Kolkata, India), Seoul National University, UCLA and the University of Chicago. Prior to joining the faculty at Lehman College, Castillo Planas completed a post-doctoral fellowship at Harvard University's Charles Warren Center for Studies in American History where she taught courses in Latinx Cultural Studies and organized the first-ever Latinx Poetry Reading and Workshop Series. She holds a Phd, MA and Mphil in American Studies and African American Studies from Yale University, an MA in English and Creative Writing from Fordham University, and a BA in Journalism and Latin American Studies from New York University.

To learn more, visit her on the web at www.melissacastilloplanas.com