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The Artist's Coven
About the Author
Born in Havana, Cuba, and raised in Venezuela, Mariel Masque weaves fiction, poetry, fable, creative non-fiction, epistles, and non-fiction to achieve a unique Caribbean, queer, mestiza hybrid voice. Former work as an anthropologist, a grassroots activist, a community and environmental planner, and an urban designer injects her poetry and prose with character, identity, and a sense of place.
Mariel's experience as a personal chef infuses her stories with umami flavors and alluring scents. Music and dance add rhythm and movement to her pieces. Her literary readings exude culture, roots, and heritage through soundbites, songs, performances, theatrics, and Afro-Cuban steps. Her paintings, illustrations, and photography transform words into 3-D mix-media exhibits.
As a former refugee, Mariel roots her writing on the personal understanding that humanity is a work in progress. Mariel coined a hybrid literary style, Lucid Surrealism (LS), where multiple realities coexist. The fluid dimensions of LS express Mariel's Mestiza identity, her bilingual, community-centered worldview, her mixed-heritage identity, and the rich mosaic of experiences, illustrating the complex nature of intersectional survival.
Anthologized in the US and Canada, her early work explores lesbian erotica from a feminist perspective. More recent work fuses the perceived reality, imagination, memories, parallel realities, dreams, out-of-body experiences, Shamanic journeys, and near-death experiences.
Mariel's work for many Native American communities and municipalities at the U.S./Mexico border feeds her inking. She is an advocate of social and environmental justice.
Interests
Mariel enjoys horseback riding and volunteering for wildlife organizations to support healthy environments for displaced wildlife. She has worked with bobcats, caracals, black wolves, and many species. These wise, sentient beings often inhabit her fables.
She has several poetry collections, short story collections, and novels in editing stages. The Butterfly's Ring is Mariel Masque's debuting novel in progress. Its sequel, Cunaguaro: The Lost Year, is the next novel in the five-novel series.
In addition to writing, Mariel is an artist and a composer, considers the Catalina Mountains her Muse, and lives in the Sonoran Desert in Arizona with her beloved felines, Magia, Oráculo, y Aragón.
Mujeres Que Escriben
In 2000, Mariel joined the Southwest Latina women writers' group, Mujeres Que Escriben. Mariel participates in monthly creative writing workshops and reads poetry and fiction at different venues, including Raices Taller 222 and the University of Arizona Poetry Center.
With Rambler the Bobcat at Single Vision Wildlife Refuge
Reviews
1
Valerina Quintana, Author of Full Moon Rising and Recalling Home
"Your writing is a plethora of vivid descriptions, rich and alluring. There is pleasure in savoring each detail.”