Born in Madrid, Spain, and raised between Madrid and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, writer and teacher Violeta Garcia-Mendoza draws upon both Spanish and American influences to enliven her work.
Violeta graduated summa cum laude with a B.A. in Spanish Literature from Duquesne University, where she also received minors in English Literature and Education. In the years after her undergrad, Violeta embraced the Spanish spirit of the "autodidacta," incorporating study in various fields, in two languages, to the end of informing her writing. In other words: she gave herself an excuse to spend her days learning more about sonnet forms, mosaics, the lambada, the Manzanares river, the Arabic influence on Spanish language and architecture, triangles, Godzilla... and many other random but fascinating topics. After some years of writing and publishing poetry and creative nonfiction, Violeta tried fiction. Such was her exhilaration and terror over the genre that she had no choice but to pursue it further. As of January 2010, she is an MFA candidate in Chatham University's low-residency program.
In the last few years, Violeta's poetry and prose have appeared in over thirty literary venues, including Cicada, Soleado, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Tattoo Highway and the literary anthologies The Maternal is Political (Seal Press, 2008) and Call Me Okaasan: Adventures in Multicultural Mothering (Wyatt-MacKenzie, 2009). She has also written thirteen installments as the "Multi-Culti Mami" columnist for Literary Mama, worked as a contributing blogger for The Latin Baby Book Club, and a book reviewer for RainbowKids Magazine, and contributed to The Tiki Tiki.
Violeta lives in Pennsylvania with her husband, children, and dogs.
