ABOUT Maribel
I am a feminist, independent scholar, writer, and teacher. I am a proud first-generation college graduate (Bryn Mawr College). My stories concentrate on the ways that race, class, gender, and sexuality intersect with family relationships, loss, forgiveness, and self-discovery.
I earned my Ph.D. in Cultural Anthropology from the University of Texas at Austin, in the ethnographic study of Mexican American women living on the US/Mexico border. My writing has been featured in Cultural Dynamics (2006), The Encyclopedia of Women’s Folklore and Folklife (2008) and Oppositional Conversations (2014). I am also co-founder of Book Club Babble (a book review website), which I co-founded and where I serve as managing editor.
My debut novel Profound and Perfect Things (May 2019) was published this past Spring by She Writes Press. Book Riot called it an “explosive debut” and listed it in their piece, "Latina Authors from the Texas-Mexico Border You Should Know." The novel was also recently featured in a piece in Texas Monthly: Reinventing the Canon: Why It’s More Important Than Ever to Read Latinx Literature.
Today, my husband and I are raising two amazing young women while I work as an elementary school teacher, write novels, run Book Club Babble — where I review works and interview authors whose work focuses on issues of diversity — race, class, gender, sexual orientation and disability.
Welcome to my website and thank you for taking the time to visit!
DEBUT NoVEL:
Profound and Perfect Things
When Isa, a closeted lesbian with conservative Mexican parents, has a one-night stand that results in an unwanted pregnancy, her sister, Cristina adopts the baby—but twelve years later, Isa, who regrets giving up her child, threatens to spill the secret of her daughter’s true parentage.
