Anel I. Flores fuses transfeminism, queerness, and Xicanidad into multidisciplinary visual and literary art centering gender and body autonomy, joy, and healing for Latina/e/x BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, birthing bodies, women, and gender non-binary kin. They aim to tell the story of queer worlds as they are not as they are perceived. They are the author of Curtains of Rain; Empanada: A Lesbiana Story en Probaditas; Les Maestres; and the chapbooks La Fea and Behind the Book-Bag. Flores is a coeditor of I Love Us: Queer Voices from South Texas and the Borderlands. Her work can be found in Xicanas, Camino Real, Fifth Wednesday, Entre Guadalupe y Malinche, and Sinister Wisdom. Their play Empanada has been staged internationally since 2002. Flores’s 30-year retrospective, I Am Home, was exhibited at the Mexican Cultural Institute of San Antonio in 2024. Flores is completing their graphic memoir, Painted Red.
Their honors include UT San Antonio’s Democratizing Racial Justice Artists in Residence Program, funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation; a Catalyst for Change Fellowship from the National Association of Latino Arts and Cultures; Writer-in-Residence at Our Lady of the Lake University; Women’s Advocate of the Year from University of Texas San Antonio; the Nebrija Creadores Award from the Universidad de Alcala de Henares in Madrid, Spain; and the Accion Women Inspiring Women Award. Flores is a cofounder of Queer Voices Collective, Queer Voices Speak Out, and LezRideSA. Flores served on the San Antonio mayor’s LGBTQIA Task Force and as Co-Reviewer and Committee Member of El Mundo Zurdo. They were also a board member for Macondo Writers Workshop, Esperanza Peace and Justice Center, San Antonio Youth Literacy, and Pride Center San Antonio.
Flores coedited JOTA: A Queer Latina y Latinx Anthology.
