Poet, novelist and essayist Erika L. Sánchez may have been a National Book Award Finalist, a 2017-2019 Princeton Arts Fellow, a 2019 NEA Literature Fellow and currently the Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz Chair in the Latin American and Latino Studies Department at DePaul University, but she takes nothing for granted. Growing up in Chicago the child of Mexican immigrant factory workers, she understood early on that not everyone was able to realize their lives’ goals. Erika, often feeling like the odd kid out, found new worlds through books and herself through writing. And she was determined to make a place for herself in that world. After a long period of struggle, in 2017 Erika L. Sánchez had the year writers dream of: her debut collection of poetry Lessons on Expulsion was published to glowing reviews as was her YA novel I’m Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter which became a finalist for the National Book Award. In this podcast, Erika talks about her traditional upbringing, her rebellion and her longing to see herself represented in literature (I’m Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter was the book she wanted to read when she was 15) and the joy she finds in her first love—poetry.