Brooklyn with her husband and scruffy dog, Gus.
She was the 2020 SmokeLong Flash Fiction Fellow, and her stories have been published in Shenandoah Literary, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, El Malpensante, Fractured Lit, SmokeLong Quarterly, The Offing, and more. Her work has been supported by organizations such as Vermont Studio Center, Kweli, Caldera Arts, and the New Orleans Writers’ Residency.
She applied the Page 69 Test to The Waves Take You Home, her debut novel, and reported the following:
If readers open The Waves Take You Home on page 69, I believe they’ll get an accurate sense of the book. This is a very emotional passage, where my main character, Violeta Sanoguera, encounters her past love, Rafa, in the kitchen after she burns herself. This is the first time she has been in her family kitchen in many years, and the grief of her Abuela passing, and trying to have everything perfect for the reception has really gotten to her.Visit María Alejandra Barrios Vélez's website.
After many years, Rafa is now a doctor who enters the scene rushing to help. The pain of the burn and all the feelings from seeing him again are pretty accurate to the emotional turmoil in the book. There is also the lingering intrigue of what will she do with the ghosts of her past?His name burned on the tip of my tongue. A name I had swallowed again and again back home in New York. The name that tasted bitter like regret. Bittersweet like a secret. Rafa.In this case, page 69 works well in showing one of the places where the book takes place: a kitchen in the Caribbean and the relationship between one of the main love interests, and the main character. If readers are into the longing of this scene, and second chance romance, I think they’ll love The Waves Take You Home!
This couldn’t be, I hadn’t seen him since that night. Hadn’t heard from him, apart from the gossip that the mellas told me sometimes when I was home.
He ran to me and took my hand between his. What was Rafa doing here? My vision was blurring from the pain, and although I wanted to focus on reality, my head felt woozy and I couldn’t form any real thoughts.
“Ay, Vi,” he said, examining my hand. “This looks bad; did you press your hand on the pan?”
I nodded, my cheeks wet even though I didn’t know when I had started crying. “Vi,” he said.
The word cut me like a slap, after all these years. I had pictured this encounter many, many times in my head, but I couldn’t have imagined that it would be like this. “What…?” I shook my head, trying to wake myself up. “What are you doing here?” Rafa smiled; I could see the concern in his almond eyes. “I’m here to pay my respects. Anton, wait, do you know if Doña Emilia kept an emergency kit in the kitchen?” Anton looked at him for a couple of moments, as if he couldn’t fathom what Rafa possibly could be doing in his kitchen.
--Marshal Zeringue
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