2009 Rifle/Oakland Story Swap Satellite Project

(August 4, 2008) The Aspen Writers' Foundation and Explore Booksellers are delighted to co-present Latina novelist, poet, and essayist Julia Alvarex in a special literary event to officially announce the cultural theme for the 2009 Aspen Summer Words Literary Festival. This intimate reading, talk, and book signing will be held at Explore Booksellers in Aspen, on August 22 at 5:00 pm. As part of her national book tour, Alvarex will promote the release of the paperback edition of her novel, Once Upon a Quinceanera, (Viking; August 2007). This event is free and open the the public!

Though born in New York City in 1950, Julia Alvarez spent the first ten years of her life in her family’s native country, the Dominican Republic. In 1960, her family was forced to flee the Dominican Republic and immigrate to the United States because of Alvarez’s father’s involvement in an underground plot to overthrow the dictator of the Dominican Republic, Rafael L. Trujillo. Alvarez's homecoming to the United States proved to be more difficult than she thought it would be. In her hardships assimilating to the English language and American life, Alvarez found comfort in the world of stories, fostering a love for reading and writing. Alvarez went on to earn her undergraduate degree at Middlebury College, and a graduate degree in Creative Writing from Syracuse University.

Her first novel, How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accent, published in 1991 received considerable attention and won a PEN Oakland/Josephine Miles Award for excellence in multicultural literature. Her reading audience continued to grow with the publication of her novels, ¡Yo! (1997), In the Name of Salomé (2000), and Saving the World (2006). A versatile artist, Alvarez has written five books for children and young adults including; How Tía Lola Came to Visit Stay (2001), Finding Miracles (2004), and the forthcoming Return to Sender, due out in 2009. She has also written a book of essays entitled, Something to Declare (2009), and five collections of poetry including, The Woman I Kept to Myself (2004). She and her husband, Bill Eichner, founded Alta Gracia, a sustainable farm in the Dominican Republic that produces organic coffee and also serves as a literacy center. She currently lives in Vermont, where she is a writer in residence at Middlebury College.