Erika L. Sanchez Books In Order

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books

Publication Order of Anthologies

Erika L. Sanchez is a renowned writer and poet from America, who is fond of writing young adult and contemporary books and poetry. She is particularly well known for her collection of poetry called Lessons On Expulsion. The young adult book written by author Sanchez has been a finalist for the 2017 National Book Award for the Literatue of Young People. Author Sanchez’s parents were immigrants from Mexico. Nowadays, she lives in Cicero, Illinois. Author Sanchez completed her graduation from the Illinois University in Chicago and then joined the New Mexico University to earn an M.F.A in Poetry. Sanchez was awarded with the Poetry Fellowship of Ruth Lilly & Dorothy Sargeant Rosenberg. The first poetry collection written by her was published by the Graywolf publishers in 2015. This collection was included in the best poetry list by The Washington Post and is regarded as a fierce and assertive debut. Kathleen Rooney from The New York Times praised author Sanchez’s wrenching explorations of shame, guilt, misogyny, and grief, as well as her depictions of hurt, haunt, and misery. Sanchez was particularly praised for using second person narrative as a means of drawing closer to the difficult subjects. In 2017, a poet laureate of the US named Tracy Smith recommended author Sanchez as one of the best voices in new age poetry. As a child, Sanchez grew up in the town of the Mexican working class called Cicero. Her apartment was very close to Chicago and was situated on southwest side border of the city. Being the child of undocumented Mexican immigrants, author Sanchez always had the determination of defying borders of all kinds. She had her role model at that time as Lisa Simpson, who still continues to be her inspiration. Such an upbringing helped her become an achiever and a feminist at a very young age. She went on to graduate Magna Cum Laude and Phi Kappa Beta from University of Illinois. Following this, she toured Madrid, Spain on Fullbright Scholarship. It was here that author Sanchez started writing poems during the night time. Sanchez was also involved in teaching English in a secondary school. Throughout her tour, she ate numerous delicious meat dishes. When her scholarship ended, Sanchex shifted to Albuquerque, New Mexico. There she enrolled herself for a course in Creative Writing and obtained an MFA.

Even though author Sanchez did not quite like Albuquerque, she kind of loved the ample parking spaces and clear skies in the city. Since passing from graduate school, Sanchez has achieved numerous scholarships, including Bread Loaf and CantoMundo Fellowship. The vivid and strange poems of author Sanchez have appeared or have been planned to appear in various popular literary journals such as Hunger Mountain, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Vinyl Poetry, Poetry Magazine, Paris Review, Pleiades, Copper Nickel, Gulf Coast, Crab Orchard Review, Ostrich Review, Boston Review, Guernica, and diode. Sanchez’s poetry has even been featured on Latino USA on NPR. In 2014, author Sanchez was invited to participate in the International Festival of Freedom of Speech and Literature known as Kapittel. This festival was organized in Stavanger, Norway, and Sanchez was accompanied by 4 other popular writers. Sanchez used this opportunity to meet some of the most incredible writers from across the globe. In addition to writing, author Sanchez also serves as a columnist. In her columns, she often gives positive advices related to sex, feminism, women, etc. Sanchez’s other contributions include writing for some top class publications like Kirkus Reviews, The Guardian, The Hugginfton Post, NBC News, BuzzFeed, Rolling Stone, Truthout, Cosmopolitan, Al Jazeera, Jezebel, Salon, etc. The articles written by her have been released all over the world and have also been translated into multiple foreign languages. Sanchez has made appearances on the National Public Radio several times. Author Sanchez is equally fluent in Spanish as well as a mixture of English and Spanish that she likes to call Spanglish. In her spare times, she likes to volunteer as a senior leader in a Buddhist organization and also involves herself in various other social works. She is represented by a literary agent named Michelle Brower. Currently, Sanchez is working on some personal essay collection.

The single young adult novel written by Erika L. Sanchez in her literary career is entitled ‘I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter’. This book was released by the Knopf Books publication in the year 2017. In the story of this book, author Sanchez has mentioned the lead characters in the form of Olga and Julia, who are described as the Perfect Mexican daughters. The other important characters in the plot include Lorena and Connor. Sanchez has set the story of the book in Chicago. At the start of the book’s story, it is shown that the Perfect Mexican daughters do not study further after the completion of their high school studies. They don’t go to college and never move out of the house of their parents after high school. They are known for not abandoning their families ever. However, Julia does not consider herself such a person, in spite of being as Mexican as her sister Olga. She thinks that Olga was always to live such a life and not her. Olga gets involved in a tragic accident on a busy Chicago street and dies eventually. As a result of this tragedy, Julia is left alone to look after her family. She begins to reassemble the pieces of her shattered family and tries to find a meaning for living through the rest of the days of her life. However, no one seems to acknowledge the fact that she is also broken due to the loss. On the other hand, Julia’s mother begins channeling her grief by pointing out all the possible ways in which Julia has achieved failure in life. But before long, Julia goes on to discover that Olga was actually not as perfect as others thought her to be. In order to find out more about the secret life that Olga lived, Julia takes the help of her best friend named Lorena, and her first love, first kiss boyfriend named Connor. She seems very much determined to know everything that Olga kept hidden from her and her family. She wonders what all things her sister had been doing in secret while still keeping her image of a perfect daughter intact. This novel turned out to be a well drawn and well written young adult story. The readers felt delight to read it and found themselves connected to it till the very end. Many critics and readers praised Sanchez a lot for coming up with such a unique storyline and interesting set of characters.