Cleyvis Natera on ‘Fog,’ Staying True to Your Voice, and Embracing Short Stories as Play

Deesha Philyaw and Dawnie Walton chat with author Cleyvis Natera, author of the new Ursa Original short story, “Fog,” and the recently published debut novel Neruda on the Park.

Read the full transcript.

About the Author 

Cleyvis Natera is the author of the debut novel Neruda on the Park. She was born in the Dominican Republic and raised in New York City. She holds a Bachelor of Arts from Skidmore College and a Master of Fine Arts in Fiction from New York University. She’s received honors from PEN America, Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts and Voices of Our Nation Arts Foundation (VONA). Her fiction, essays and criticism have appeared in The New York Times Review of Books, The Brooklyn Rail, The Rumpus, Alien Nation: 36 True Tales of Immigration, TIME, Gagosian Quarterly, The Washington Post, The Kenyon Review, Aster(ix) and Kweli Journal, among other publications. Cleyvis teaches creative writing to undergraduate and graduate students in New York City. She lives with her husband and two young children in Montclair, New Jersey.

Episode Links and Reading List: 

• “Fog” (Ursa) 
• Neruda on the Park (2022)
• “Played or How I Failed at Becoming a Chapiadora” (Kweli Journal, 2019)
• In Cuba I Was a German Shepherd by Ana Menéndez (2002) 

More from Deesha Philyaw and Dawnie Walton: 

• The Secret Lives of Church Ladies, by Deesha Philyaw
• The Final Revival of Opal & Nev, by Dawnie Walton

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