Cubanabooks Editorial Board & Staff

About the Staff

Editor in Chief

Dr. Sara E. Cooper (Ph.D. University of Texas, Austin(opens in new window) 1999) is  Professor at California State University, Chico.  She teaches Spanish, Contemporary Latin American,  and Gender/Queer Studies. She is the founder of the Cuban and Cuban Diaspora Cultural Expression Discussion Group of the Modern Language Association and has a special interest in women's experiences in Cuba.  She is the editor of The Ties That Bind: Questioning Family Dynamics and Family Discourse in Hispanic Literature and Film as well as Lesbian Images in International Popular Culture (also a special issue of the Journal of Lesbian Studies). She is the translator of Burnt Honey– a novel by Chicano Antonio Arreguín Bermúdez, and the novel The Bleeding Wound/Sangra por la herida as well as several stories in Havana is a Really Big City by Cuban Mirta Yáñez. Her articles and translations appear in several journals and anthologies, including: Letras femeninas , Chasqui, Confluencia, Cuban Studies , Kunapipi, A Changing Cuba in a Changing World, Cultura y letras cubanas en el siglo XXI, Tortilleras: Hispanic and Latina Lesbian Expression, Journal of Lesbian Studies, Interdisciplinary Literary Studies and Challenging Lesbian Norms . 

Cover and Text Designer

Kellen Livingston is a graphic designer in Portland, Oregon. She graduated from California State University, Chico in 2010 with a B.A. in Communication Design and a certificate in Literary Editing and Publishing. Kellen first partnered with Cubanabooks as a text designer for Havana is a Really Big City, a collection of short stories by Mirta Yáñez. Since then, she has done cover and text design for an additional seven publications through Cubanabooks. When she’s not designing, she’s busy exploring the beautiful Northwest and enjoying all the wonderful food Portland has to offer.

Library Outreach

Jamie McGrath (MLIS University of South Florida, Tampa 1984) has deepened her lifelong love affair with the written word by working as a journalist, managing editor, and librarian. She loves to volunteer in libraries when she is in Latin America for a month or longer. Libraries have always been her home of choice. For the past 12 years, she has sung in Spanish with La Peña Community Chorus(opens in new window) and toured with them to Mexico, Peru, Uruguay, and Argentina. In addition to getting the word out about Cubanabooks, she is currently cowriting and editing the multimedia production about the chorus´s recent tour to Uruguay and Argentina.

About the Editorial Board

• Nancy Alonso, Cuba, author, UNEAC
• Sara E. Cooper, California State University, Chico
• Maria DiFrancesco(opens in new window), Ithaca College
• Irune Del Río Gabiola, Butler University
• Kate Hedeen(opens in new window), Kenyon College
• Robert Lesman (JPG), Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania
• Jacqueline Loss(opens in new window), University of Connecticut, Storrs
• Paula Sanmartín, California State University, Fresno
• Mirta Yáñez, Cuba, author, UNEAC