Angie Cruz is a novelist and editor, born in Washington Heights, New York City, in 1972 to Dominican parents. She spent her childhood traveling between New York City and the Dominican Republic, creating a deep connection with both places. Cruz has a fondness for the Dominican Republic, often mentioning that it feels closer and more familiar to her than downtown Manhattan.
During her high school years, Cruz attended La Guardia High School with a focus on Visual Arts and later pursued a degree in Fashion Design at the Fashion Institute of Technology. After college, she worked in the fashion industry for several years before transitioning to a full-time college student at SUNY Binghamton. It was here where her love for literature and history began to flourish. Cruz eventually earned her MFA from NYU in 1999. In 1997, she co-founded WILL: Women In Literature & Letters with Adelina Anthony and Marta Lucia, an organization that aimed to build community and transform society through literature.
Cruz has been recognized for her outstanding writing and activism with numerous awards, including The New York Foundation of The Arts Fellowship, Barbara Deming Award, Yaddo, and The Camargo Fellowship. She has published three novels, Soledad, Let It Rain Coffee, and Dominicana, which was shortlisted for The Women’s Prize, longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Fiction, and the Aspen Words Literary Prize, among others. Cruz's work has been featured in prestigious journals such as The Paris Review, VQR, Callaloo, and Gulf Coast. She is the founder and Editor-in-chief of the award-winning literary journal, Aster(ix), and is currently an Associate Professor at the University of Pittsburgh. Cruz spends her time between Pittsburgh, New York, and Turin. Her latest novel, How Not To Drown in A Glass of Water, was released in Fall 2022.