Angie Cruz was born in Washington Heights, New York City on February 24, 1972. She attended SUNY Binghamton and received her undergraduate degree in English. She went on to receive an MFA in creative writing from New York University. She is the author of four novels: Soledad (2001), Let It Rain Coffee (2005), Dominicana (2019), and How Not to Drown in A Glass of Water (2022). Her work is often about characters of Dominican heritage and deals with financial struggles, immigration, and the lives of women. She is also often concerned with the way that history, both national and familial, impacts the present lives of her characters. Talking about her work in an interview with The Los Angeles Review of Books, Cruz said "History can tell us a fact but fiction, in [Toni] Morrison’s words, 'discloses truth.' Reading fiction created the urgency in me to dig deeper and tell our stories. But my love of history, what we inherit, how it informs today, is still very much in my work."
Domincana received the Alex Award and was shortlisted for the 2020 Prize for Women's Fiction. Cruz has also received the Barbara Deming Award, Van Lier Literary Fellowship, and the NALAC Fund for the Arts Fellowship. Her work has been praised in publications like NPR and The New York Times. Cruz is also the founder and editor-in-chief of the literary magazine Aster(ix). She currently teaches at the University of Pittsburgh as part of its MFA program.
How Not to Drown in a Glass of Water is a novel by Angie Cruz, first published in 2022. Set in the New York City neighborhood of Washington Heights, it tells the story of a middle-aged Dominican woman named Cara Romero.
The novel follows Cara...
