Raul Palma is the author of A HAUNTING IN HIALEAH GARDENS (Dutton), and IN THIS WORLD OF ULTRAVIOLET LIGHT (winner of the 2021 Don Belton Prize, Indiana University Press). He earned his Ph.D. in English at the University of Nebraska, with a specialization in ethnic studies. He was awarded a dissertation fellowship through Ithaca College’s diversity scholars program, which he used to complete his dissertation Manteca, a novel set in 1980s Miami in the shadow of Mariel and the killing of Arthur McDuffie by a Latino police officer.
In H&S, Palma is the Associate Dean of Faculty and New Initiatives. He also teaches and is a member of the fiction faculty. His research and teaching interests include creative writing studies, creative writing pedagogy, and composition studies, with a leaning toward topics in LatinX studies, women and gender studies, and narratology. Most recently, he has turned his attention to decolonizing the syllabus and the work that takes place in the creative writing classroom. In class, craft and creative writing lore are sites of excavation; he uses critical theory to see the situational factors that give rise to craft.
His work has also appeared in Alaska Quarterly Review, Chattahoochee Review, The Greensboro Review, Hayden's Ferry Review, Smokelong Quarterly, and The Sonora Review. The first chapter of his novel Manteca was distinguished/notable in Best American Short Stories (edited by Junot Diaz), and his short fiction was included in Best Small Fictions 2018 (selected by Aimee bender). His work has been supported with fellowships and scholarships from the CubaOne Foundation, the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center, the Santa Fe Writer's Conference, Sewanee Writer's Conference, and Sundress Academy for the Arts.