Reyna Grande

Biography

Grande grew up in poverty in Iguala, Guerrero then was left behind for eight years when her father, and later her mother, headed to the U.S. in search of work. Grande herself came to the U.S. as an undocumented child immigrant via an illegal border crossing. She faced many trials and tribulations in becoming the first in her family to obtain a college degree.

Grande attended Pasadena City College and later transferred to University of California, Santa Cruz, where she obtained a B.A. degree in literature/creative writing. She later received her M.F.A. in creative writing from Antioch University. She has been honored with an American Book Award, the El Premio Aztlan Literary Award, and most recently, the Luis Leal Award for Distinction in Chicano/Latino Literature.

Grande is a member of the prestigious Macondo Writers Workshop, the workshop founded by Sandra Cisneros. She has taught creative writing at UCLA Extension's Writer's Program, at VONA (Voices of Our Nation's Arts), the Latino Writer's Conference, and more.

Work

Grande's first novel, Across a Hundred Mountains. draws heavily on her own experiences growing up in Mexico and as an undocumented immigrant in the U.S. The book was selected by a number of common read programs.

Grande's second novel, Dancing with Butterflies (Washington Square Press, 2009), was published to critical acclaim. An excerpt of Dancing with Butterflies was published in 2008 as a short story, titled "Adriana," in Latinos in Lotusland: An Anthology of Contemporary Southern California Literature (Bilingual Press), edited by Daniel Olivas.

In 2012, Atria Books published Grande's memoir, The Distance Between Us, a coming-of-age story about her life before and after coming to the U.S. as an undocumented child immigrant. In an interview published by the Los Angeles Review of Books on 6 December 2012, Grande explained why she decided to part from fiction to tell her story:

The Distance Between Us was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award (autobiography category). As with Across a Hundred Mountains, it has been selected for a number of common read programs.

Awards