Ivelisse Rodriguez

Ivelisse Rodriguez

Ivelisse Rodriguez’s debut short story collection Love War Stories was a 2019 PEN/Faulkner finalist and a 2018 Foreword Reviews INDIES finalist. It was noted as a must read or best book of the year in over thirty publications, including O magazine, Women’s Health, Good Housekeeping, Cosmopolitan, and more. She is a contributing arts editor for the Boston Review, where she acquires fiction. She is a 2022 Letras Boricuas fellow, a Tanne Foundation award winner, a Kimbilio fellow, and a VONA/Voices alum. She earned an M.F.A. in creative writing from Emerson College and a Ph.D. in English-creative writing from the University of Illinois at Chicago.

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Letters from the Fiction Editors: “Dear Short Story”

It’s for you to step out of the novel’s shadow. You don’t need to stand next to anybody who takes all your shine. You have your own spotlight to bloom under that is not predicated on comparison but is predicated on your sole existence. People like to create drama: #TeamShortStory or #TeamNovel. But you don’t need each other to exist, and you don’t to be pitted against each other. Like Paul D said to Sethe: “You your best thing.”

Summer of Nene

I was there when he fell.  We were fucking around in Central Park.  Had been…