Overview
Mariana Virginia Romo-Carmona (born 1952) is a Chilean American author and academic in the areas of Latin American literature and Latinx studies.
Early life and education
Mariana Romo-Carmona was born in Santiago, Chile, in 1952. In the early 1960s, her family moved to Calama, in northern Chile, where they worked in the artistic and cultural spheres.
Career and activism
Romo-Carmona came out as a lesbian in 1975, and when she and her husband divorced the following year, she lost custody of her son due to her sexuality, which radicalized her and led her to organize around her identity as a Latina lesbian. She became an engaged Latinx and LGBT rights activist. She also served as an editor and translator for the Conditions feminist journal collective from 1998 to 1990. It was followed in 1999 by the poetry and prose collection Speaking Like an Immigrant, then in 2011 by the collection Sobrevivir y otros complejos: Narrative Poems in englillano. It was the first Spanish-language collection of its kind. Romo-Carmona teaches Latin American and Latinx studies at CUNY. She was previously on the faculty of the creative writing MFA program at Goddard College. The documentation of her activist work is held at the Lesbian Herstory Archives in New York.
Fiction
* Speaking Like an Immigrant: A Collection. Revised and expanded edition. New York: Escritorial Press, 2010. * Speaking Like an Immigrant: A Collection. First ed. New York: Latina Lesbian History Project, 1999. * Living at Night. A novel. Duluth: Spinsters Ink, 1997.
Nonfiction
* Conversaciones: Relatos por padres y madres de hijas lesbianas e hijos gay. San Francisco: Cleis Press, 2001.
Poetry
* Sobrevivir y otros complejos: Narrative Poems in Englillano. New York: Escritorial Press, 2011.
Anthologies
* Queer City. Co-editors Harold Robinson, Ira Silverberg, and Jacqueline Woodson. New York: The Portable Lower East Side, 1992. * Cuentos: Stories by Latinas. Co-editors: Alma Gómez and Cherríe Moraga. New York: Kitchen Table Press, 1983.
Translations
* Teaming: Monica’s Dream, by Jil Van Eyle and Mercedes Salvador. New York: Escritorial Press, 2012. * La muchacha de los ojos tristes: Poemas, homenajes y estrés, by Noemí Trujillo Giacomelli. New York: Escritorial Press, 2011. * Viviendo campo a través: Memoir, poems and stories, by Mercedes Salvador Acevedo. New York: Escritorial Press, 2011.