DAHLMA LLANOS-FIGUEROA
Photograph by Matvey Zabbi
Dahlma Llanos-Figueroa was born in Puerto Rico and raised in New York City. She is a product of the Puerto Rican communities on the island and in the South Bronx. She attended the New York City public school system and received her academic degrees from the State University of New York at Buffalo and Queens College–City University of New York. As a child she was sent to live with her grandparents in Puerto Rico where she was introduced to the culture of rural Puerto Rico, including the storytelling that came naturally to the women in her family, especially the older women. Much of her work is based on her experiences during this time. Dahlma taught creative writing and language and literature in the New York City public school system before becoming a young-adult librarian. She has also taught creative writing to teenagers, adults, and senior citizens throughout New York while honing her own skills as a fiction writer and memoirist.
The hardcover edition of Daughters of the Stone was listed as a 2010 Finalist for the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize. In 2020, the self-published the paperback edition of Daughters of the Stone won the 16th Annual National Indie Excellence® Awards for Multicultural Fiction. In 2021, she was awarded the NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellowship for Fiction, a City Artists Corps Grant, and the Letras Boricuas Fellow. Her short stories appear in several anthologies, including: Bronx Memoir Project, Latina Authors and Their Muses, Chicken Soup for the Latino Soul, Breaking Ground: Anthology of Puerto Rican Women Writers in New York 1980-2012, and Growing Up Girl. Dahlma's work also appears in various literary magazines such as the Afro-Hispanic Review and Kweli Journal. Her her second novel, A Woman of Endurance (Amistad, 2022) is available in hard cover and paperback (Amistad, 2023); as well as a Spanish language edition Indómita (Harper Español, 2022). Since her retirement, Dahlma continues to dedicate herself to her writing, speaking engagements, panels, and workshops. She resides in the Bronx with her husband, photographer Jonathan Lessuck.
Awards
2023 Best Novel - Historical Fiction, Spanish -
Indómita by Dahlma Llanos-Figueroa (Bronze Medal)
2023 Best Fiction Book Translation, English to Spanish -
Indómita by Dahlma Llanos-Figueroa,
translated by Aurora Lauzardo Ugarte (Gold Medal)
2021 Letras Boricuas Fellowship / Mellon Foundation Award
2021 NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellow for Fiction
2017 Hedgebrook at Widbley Island—Residency
2013 Vermont College of Fine Arts—Partial Fellowship
2012 Las Dos Brujas Workshop—Partial Fellowship
2010 Go on Girl Best New Author of the Year Award
2010 Go on Girl Best Female Author of the Year Award
2010 PEN/Robert W. Bingham Fellowship, Finalist
2010 Summer Literary Series, Montreal, Canada, Partial Fellowship
2007 Summer Literary Series, St. Petersburg, Russia, Partial Fellowship
2006-7 Bronx Council on the Arts Fellows for Fiction
2002 BRIO Award for Creative Non-fiction, Bronx Council on the Arts
1997 BRIO Award for Fiction, Bronx Council on the Arts
1997 Long Distance Runner Award/John Oliver Killens Writer’s Workshop
1995 ACE Award for Fiction, Bronx Council on the Arts
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Workshops, Conferences, and Retreats
2023 VONA Winter Intensive
2023 Hedgebrook Radical Craft Retreat, Tuscany
2023 State of Our Union, Telling the American Story, Mellon Foundation, San Juan, PR
2023 Libreria Esquina, book launch, Indómita, San Juan, PR
2022 VONA January Workshop: The Next Chapter
2022 Cafecito con Dahlma, Centro, Hunter College, CUNY, interview
2022 Latino USA interview, Maria Hinojosa
2022 Trauma, Tresses and Truth presentation, AWP22
2022 Bronx Buzz, A Woman of Endurance, Bronxnet
2022 Turn the Page Interview, Stonybrook University, NY
2022 Epigraph Literary Festival--presentation
2022 19th Annual Latinas in Power Symposium, presentation, Hartford, CT
2022 Kweli Afro-Latina Panel
2022 Yale University, Office of Diversity and Inclusion, presentation AWE
2022 In Conversation with Esmeralda Santiago, Taller Puertorriqueño, Philadelphia, PA
2022 Mark Twain House and Museum, presentation AWE, Hartford, CT
2022 Las Comadres de las Américas, presentation AWE
2022 Voices for Resistance, Straw Dogs, presentation, Northampton, MA
2022 El Gran Combo, Recirculation, Word Up Bookstore presentation, NYC
2022 Entre Aguas, DSL Solidarity Speakers Series, Johns Hopkins, MD
2022 Morristown Book Festival, presentation AWE, Morristown, NJ
2022 Prince George County Office of Civil Rights, presentation AWE, MD
2022 Racial Justice Reads: Facing Race National Conference, presentation AWE, Phoenix, AZ
2021 Vermont College of Fine Arts, Novel Retreat, Montpelier, VT
2021 Trauma, Tresses and Truth Conference, presenter
2021 AROHO Global Summer Camp Conference for Writers
2020 Kweli Workshop
2020 Hurston/Wright Foundation Workshop
2019 Hedgebrook Masterclass at Tuscany
2018 Yucatan Writers’ Workshop, Cozumel, Mexico
2017 Yucatan Writers’ Workshop, Cozumel, Mexico
2017 Las Dos Brujas Writing Workshop, Albiqui, NM,
2017 The Writers’ Hotel Writing Conference, NYC
2016 Yucatan Writers’ Workshop, Merida, Mexico
2016 Vermont College of Fine Arts Novel Retreat, Montpelier, VT
2015 St. Augustine Writers’ Workshop, St. Augustine, FL
2015 Summer Literary Series, St. Petersburg, Russia
2014 Vermont College of Fine Arts—Novel Retreat
2014 St. Augustine Writers’ Workshop, St. Augustine, FL
2013 New York State Summer Writers’ Institute, Saratoga Springs, NY
2008 Centro Pikkoli Writing Workshop, Vitorchiano, Tuscia, Italy
2002 Writers of the Americas, Havana and Matanzas, Cuba
1995 Byrdcliff, The Woodstock Writers’ Retreat, Woodstock, NY
1995 Caribbean Writers’ Conference, University of Florida, Coral Gables
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