Andres Vaamonde

Artist Statement

As a fiction writer, I am drawn to semi-surreal, semi-historical stories that blend humor and pathos to examine the influence of the past on the present. I am interested in characters who are unaware, precocious, and quixotic—the charlatans, the zealots, and the independent researchers. I am keen on things like historical revisionism and generational inherited trauma, and am curious about how silence begets pain, how migration contorts selfhood, and how storytelling creates identity. Above all, I love trying to find the absurdity in the banal and the banality in the absurd. I’m inspired by contemporary authors like Rivka Galchen, Mariana Enríquez, Samanta Schweblin, and Ottessa Moshfegh, as well as late giants like Kurt Vonnegut, Roberto Bolaño, Franz Kafka, and Jorge Luis Borges. I also draw on the literary legacy of the testimonio in Latin America, the work of journalists like Tina Rosenberg, and the theory of scholars like Guillermo O’Donnell.

Bio

Andres Vaamonde has worked as a bike delivery boy, a bricklayer, a firefighter, a coffee picker, a mystery shopper, an advertising stooge, and—most recently—a literary book scout. He was named a Finalist for the Marianne Russo Award for Emerging Writers and a Finalist for the Ember Chasm Review Novel Excerpt Contest. He has earned residencies from 33 Officina Creativa, Willapa Bay AiR, and the Stadler Center at Bucknell University, where he was the Spring 2022 Philip Roth Resident in Creative Writing. He is a creative writing instructor at Writopia Labs and a literary consultant for Roadmap Writers. He was born and Raised in New York City.

https://andresvaamonde.com/

Tomasz Jedrowski

Artist Statement

I write about queerness, nature, and healing, often in historical contexts. I'm fascinated by the potential that spirituality holds as an antidote to personal and collective violence, and how, despite what it may look like, humanity's struggles have remained essentially the same since the dawn of time.

Cover of my debut novel, Swimming in the Dark, published in the U.S. by Harper Collins (2020)

Bio

Tomasz Jedrowski is the author of Swimming in the Dark, a queer coming-of-age novel that has been translated into fourteen languages. He was born in Germany to Polish parents and graduated from the University of Cambridge. He currently lives in the forest in France, teaching creative writing and working on his second novel.