Dailihana Alfonseca

BIO

Dailihana Alfonseca is a poet, writer, researcher, and professor. A graduate of UNC–Chapel Hill, she considers herself a Carolinian, having lived and studied in both North and South Carolina for over a decade. Her writing blends research on medical discourse, personal narrative, and fiction to examine representations of “insanity” in literature by immigrant women, while tracing parallels to her own childhood experiences and trauma.

Her short story “Spanish Soap Operas Killed My Mother” won the Robert J. Dau Prize for Debut Fiction in 2023 and was also nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She is currently working on her first poetry collection and a follow-up work, Merengues Murdered My Father, which explores Afro-Latin-Caribbean heritage, family structures, and cultural memory.  Outside of writing, she rescues dogs, volunteers at a literacy center, travels with her family, and reads avidly.

WORKS

• “Spanish Soap Operas Killed My Mother” (2023)
• [In progress] Merengues Murdered My Father

Von Díaz

Biography

Von Diaz is an Emmy Award-winning documentarian and food historian. Born in Puerto Rico and raised in Atlanta, GA, she explores the intersections of food, culture, and identity. She has contributed recipes and essays to a number of cookbooks and anthologies, is a frequent contributor to the New York Times, as well as NPR, Food & Wine Magazine, and Bon Appétit, among many others. Today, she is an editor and Senior Producer for StoryCorps, the largest oral history project in the U.S., producing broadcasts for NPR’s Morning Edition.  In addition, she has taught food studies and oral history at Duke University and UNC-Chapel Hill, as well as food writing and audio production at New York University and The New School.

Works

• Islas: A Celebration of Tropical Cooking (2024)
• Coconuts & Collards: Recipes and Stories from Puerto Rico to the Deep South (2018)

Tita Ramírez

Biography

Tita Ramírez is an associate professor of English and creative writing at Elon University in North Carolina, where she teaches fiction and creative nonfiction and mentors emerging writers. Originally from Miami and the daughter of a Cuban exile and a Kentucky native, Ramírez draws on her Cuban American heritage and bilingual upbringing in her storytelling. Her fiction and nonfiction have appeared in Literary Hub, The Normal School, Black Warrior Review, and elsewhere. Her debut novel, Tell It to Me Singing, published by Simon & Schuster, explores family secrets, identity, and the Cuban American experience through elements inspired by telenovelas and diasporic memory. The book has received praise for its emotional depth, humor, and resonance with readers across cultural backgrounds. She lives in North Carolina with her husband and two sons.

Works

• “Geography” (2022)
• Tell It to Me Singing (2024)