Marytza K. Rubio is a writer from Santa Ana, California. She has an MFA in Creative Writing: Latin America from Queens University of Charlotte and is the founder of Makara Center for the Arts, a nonprofit library and art center in her hometown. Her debut collection, Maria, Maria: And Other Stories, was longlisted for the National Book Award for Fiction.
Conjuring entrancing tales of Mexican American mystics and misfits, Marytza K. Rubio shatters the boundaries of reality with this fiercely imaginative debut.
Set against the tropics and megacities of the Americas, Maria, Maria takes inspiration from wild creatures, tarot, and the porous borders between life and death. Motivated by love and its inverse, grief, the characters who inhabit these stories negotiate boldly with nature to cast their desired ends. As the enigmatic community college professor in “Brujería for Beginners” reminds us: “There’s always a price for conjuring in darkness. You won’t always know what it is until payment is due.” This commitment drives the disturbingly faithful widow in “Tijuca,” who promises to bury her husband’s head in the rich dirt of the jungle, and the sisters in “Moksha,” who are tempted by a sleek obsidian dagger once held by a vampiric idol.
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