In her collection of short stories, We Came All the Way from Cuba So You Could Dress Like This?, María de los Ángeles, the Puerto Rican narrator of 'Forever,' states, 'I'm a lesbian activist. While her work gives voice to the outsider, it is a voice as often humorous as it is tragic. Gay men and lesbians, junkies, abused wives, and people with AIDS speakįrom the margins of urban life in America. Obejas' characters are often the disenfranchised. She was awarded a National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing fellowship for poetry in 1986. Obejas' short stories and poetry have been widely anthologized in collections such as Cubana (1998), Little Havana Blues (1996), The Way We Write Now (1995), and Latina (1995).

She received the Studs Terkel Award for journalism in 1996. In addition to her weekly column for the Chicago Tribune, her articles also regularly appear in national publications like the Advocate, Ms., Latina, Out and Nation. A poet, fiction writer, and journalist, she has worked as a reporter in Chicago since the early 1980s. In 1993 she received a Master of Fine Arts in creative writing from Warren Wilson College in Asheville, North Carolina. Upon their arrival, the family was sent to Indiana, where Obejas grew up in Michigan City. by boat with her family at the age of six. Daughter of José and Alicia Fleites ObejasĬuban-born Achy Obejas came to the U.S.

Achy obejas memory mambo