Myriam Gurba

Myriam Gurba is a queer spoken-word artist, visual artist, and writer from Santa Maria, California. She currently lives and teaches in Long Beach, California. Her most recent novel, Painting Their Portraits in Winter: Stories, explores Mexican stories and traditions from a feminist lens.

Gurba toured with Sister Spit, a "lesbian-feminist spoken-word and performance art collective." She read at Radar, Bootleg Theater, Skylight Books, Book Show, Rhapsodomancy, The Poetic Research Bureau, Tongue & Groove, Small Press Fest at Pitzer College, Gallery 211 Booksmith and Charis Books & More.

Gurba exhibited at the Museum of Latin American Art and The Center Long Beach.

Gurba is the author of two books: Painting Their Portraits in Winter: Stories (Manic D Press, 2015) and Dahlia Season: Stories and a Novella (Future Tense, 2007). She wrote the chapbooks: Sweatsuits of the Damned (RADAR Productions, 2013), Menudo & Herb: a little book to reach for during big bowel movements (2013), A White Girl Named Shaquanda: A Chomo Allegory and Trewish Story (2013), River Candy (eohippus labs) and Wish You Were Me (Future Tense Books, 2011).

Gurba's work has been anthologized in Best American Erotica (St. Martin's), Bottom's Up (Soft Skull), Tough Girls (Black Books) Ambientes: New Queer Latino Writing and Secrets & Confidences: The Complicated Truth about Women's Friendships (Seal). Her poetry appears in Entropy and Everyday Genius. Her prose appears in Time (magazine), Colorlines, Les Figues Press, Zocalo Public Square, The Wanderer, figment and XQsi Magazine.

Gurba's debut novel Dahlia Season won The Edmund White Award for Debut Fiction from Publishing Triangle, and was a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award. Dazed ranked Dahlia Season among their list of queer lit classics. Emily Gould described Gurba as "a new writer for the first time whose voice is different from any you’ve heard before and who you want to keep hearing forever."

Reviews of Gurba's work appear in The Lesbrary, Rain Taxi, BIG OTHER and Wing Chair Books. Articles about her appears in KQED, The Edge LB and Confessions of a Boy Toy. Interviews with her appear in OC Weekly, MOLAA, The Normal School, Weird Sister and Otherppl. Playlists for Gurba's writing appear in Largehearted Boy.