Claire Jimenez is a Puerto Rican writer who has spent her childhood years traveling between Brooklyn and Staten Island, New York. She has made a name for herself in the literary world as a talented author of literary fiction, with a focus on the complexities of family and sisterhood. Jimenez's short story collection, "Staten Island," won the Hornblower Award in 2019 for the first book.
Jimenez has a Master's of Fine Arts from Vanderbilt University and is currently pursuing her PhD in English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Her academic pursuits include a concentration in ethnic studies and digital humanities. She has also been the recipient of a Mellon Foundation grant from the U.S Latino Digital Humanities Program at the University of Houston in 2020. In addition to her writing, Jimenez has also held positions as a research fellow at Hunter College and is currently an assistant fiction editor at Prairie Schooner.
Jimenez's debut novel, "What Happened to Ruthy Ramirez," was published in 2023 and tells a touching story of family and sisterhood. The novel was originally a short story that the author began writing ten years before its publication. It was inspired by loss, the violence of migration, identity, and family. The idea for the novel was sparked by Jimenez's fascination with reality TV and the question of what it would be like to recognize someone from your past on television, someone you thought you had lost forever.
Jimenez's writing has been published in various publications such as Remezcla, Afro-Hispanic Review, PANK, The Rumpus, el roommate, Eater, District Lit, The Toast, and the Los Angeles Review of Books. She has also received recognition for her work, including the 2019 Hornblower Award for her first book and a Mellon Foundation grant.