En Otro Oz

In this transcendent series of poems, the reader spins through a series of gorgeously aching images that, together, depict the kind of displacement we so desperately try to understand through the tales we tell ourselves.

In Acevedo's masterful hand, Frank L. Baum's Dorothy becomes Dorotea, her exile transformed from a Technicolor fantasy to a frantic journey towards freedom, threatened by the very real and "terrible possibilities of blood." These poems stun and startle, revealing the reality behind the heavy curtains of the stories we create to convince ourselves of safety; too often, there is no way to return, because home is as much of a fairy tale as the city of Oz.

Chantel Acevedo's novels include Love and Ghost Letters (St. Martin's Press), which won the Latino International Book Award and was a finalist for the Connecticut Book of the Year, Song of the Red Cloak, a historical novel for young adults, A Falling Star (Carolina Wren Press), winner of the Doris Bakwin Award, and National Bronze Medal IPPY Award, and The Distant Marvels, (Europa Editions), a Carnegie Medal finalist. Acevedo is currently an Associate Professor of English in the MFA Program of the University of Miami.