Richie Narvaez, assistant adjunct professor of English and Communication Studies, was recently awarded a Letras Boricuas Fellowship from the Mellon Foundation and the Flamboyan Foundation’s Arts Fund. Narvaez joins the third cohort of Letras Boricuas Fellows, comprising 20 Puerto Rican authors whose work spans a host of diverse literary genres and styles.
The fellowship, which provides each recipient with an unrestricted grant of $25,000 to support their literary practice, was born from a years-long collaboration between the two foundations, aiming to identify, elevate, and amplify the voices of Puerto Rican writers and to preserve Puerto Rico’s rich yet historically underfunded literary tradition.
Narvaez is a multi-genre writer who has published over 100 short stories, essays, and poems. His books include the crime novel Hipster Death Rattle and the award-winning collection Roachkiller and Other Stories, among other titles.