Natera and her publisher Ballantine to donate 50 copies to CCNY students
On Monday, October 17, author Cleyvis Natera will read from her debut novel Neruda on the Park as part of the CCNY MFA in Creative Writing’s Chai & Chat reading series. The discussion will be moderated by Professor Michelle Valladares, director of the MFA, followed by a Q&A with the author. Natera and her publisher Ballantine are also donating fifty copies of the novel to CCNY students for the event.
Natera is currently a guest faculty teaching fiction in the MFA, though she spent two decades working a corporate job as an executive before becoming a full-time writer. Her essays, short fiction and criticism have appeared in many top journals including The New York Times Book Review, The Rumpus, The Washington Post and The Kenyon Review among others. Neruda on the Park was an anticipated book of 2022 by Time, The Today Show, Good Morning America’s Zibby Owens, Entertainment Weekly, The Millions, Electric Literature, Lit Hub and The Rumpus. The novel concerns a Dominican family in New York City who take radically different paths when faced with encroaching gentrification. Upon its release, it was selected as a New York Times Editor’s Choice.
Born in the Dominican Republic, Natera moved at an early age to New York City and was raised just a few blocks from City College. “The University has played a big role in the community and in my writing life,” she told Michelle Valladares in preparation for the reading, and it was for that reason that she asked Ballantine to donate copies to CCNY students.
Chai & Chat is an intimate reading and conversation series organized by the CCNY MFA in Creative Writing. The series invites contemporary authors to read from and discuss their work, all over a of chai. The series is generously funded by the Estate of Kenneth Kowald for Advancing American Literature.
Chai & Chat is an intimate reading and conversation series organized by the CCNY MFA in Creative Writing. The series invites contemporary authors to read and discuss their work over a cup of chai. The series is generously funded by the Estate of Kenneth Kowald for Advancing American Literature.
For more information on this event of the CCNY MFA in Creative Writing, contact Stewart Sinclair at ssinclair@ccny.cuny.edu