Sylvia A. Zéleny holds a BA in Hispanic literature from the University of Sonora and two master’s degrees, one in humanities from the ITESM and another in creative writing from the University of Texas. She writes both fiction and nonfiction works and has authored stories like Gente Menuda (Voces del Desierto, 1999) and Otras Manías (Narrativas Divergentes Award, 2014), and novels such as Una no habla de esto (Tierra Adentro, 2008) and El Libro de Aisha (Random House, 2021).

She is the current director and a professor of the online creative writing program at the University of Texas at El Paso. She is the coordinator of Casa Octavia, a residence for writers where she also teaches individual and collective workshops. Similarly, she has taught workshops on fiction and nonfiction discourse across the United States, Mexico, and Colombia, and has coordinated writing workshops for victims of violence along the border between El Paso and Ciudad Juárez.

Introduction to Writing Fiction