We’re thrilled to introduce the 2025 Oregon Literary Fellowship Recipients with individual features on our blog. Out-of-state judges spent several months evaluating the 400+ applications we received, and selected thirteen writers and two publishers to receive grants of $3,500 each. Literary Arts also awarded two Oregon Literary Career Fellowships of $10,000 each. The 2025 Fellowship recipients were recognized at the 2025 Oregon Book Awards Ceremony on April 28, and featured at a public reading event on July 8 at Literary Arts.
Amelia Díaz Ettinger (she/her) is a 2025 Oregon Literary Fellow in Young Readers Literature and the recipient of the Edna L. Holmes Fellowship. Amelia is a Latinx BIPOC poet and writer. Her books include Learning to Love a Western Sky, Speaking at a Time /Hablando a la Vez, These, These Hollow Bones, and two chapbooks Fossils in a Red Flag and Self Dissection.
Amelia’s poetry and short stories have been published in anthologies, literary magazines, and periodicals. She has an MS in Biology and an MFA in creative writing. Her literary work is a marriage between science and her experience as an immigrant.
Q & A WITH LITERARY ARTS
What excites you the most about receiving an Oregon Literary Fellowship?
There is so much gratitude for receiving this fellowship. To be in the company of the other recipients and getting to meet them is one of those things I’m grateful for. Being allowed to advance my craft in ways I had not foreseen is another way I feel thankful and excited.
How would you describe your writing process or creative practice?
My life is a bit complicated right now, being at the crossroads of too many factors outside my control, and my creative practice reflects this. In an ideal world, I would get up early in the morning, work on my craft for hours, go for a mountain bike ride, and then return to the practice. However, we live in a time that is chaotic and uncertain, and my practice suffers as a consequence. I write whenever I can find some quiet time, whether it’s morning, night, or high noon. Sometimes I write for a few minutes, sometimes the universe blesses me with a few hours. But in my head, the poems and short stories continue to be planted, massaged, and processed. So, I work on my craft all day long.
What authors or books have shaped you the most as a writer?
I wasn’t a child who read books. It wasn’t until my university genetics professor, Dr. Bruck, gave me his copy of Cat’s Cradle, by Kurt Vonnegut, that my appetite for books germinated. Vonnegut was quickly followed by Gabriel García Márquez, el Gabo, who showed me stories I could also identify with, as well as Isabel Allende, Neruda, and many other Latin American writers, too numerous to name or thank enough. Then, I met Toni Morrison, and another world opened.
Are there any Oregonian writers you look to for motivation or inspiration?
Again, there are so many, I’m afraid of leaving someone out. But Ursula K. Le Guin, whom I had the pleasure of meeting in the 80s. Kim Stafford, who is not only a beautiful poet but also an inspiration and a guidance fountain. Molly Goss, who is witty and funny and so generous. Oh, my heavens, and so many friends who write beautiful poetry and prose. The list is so big. This state is home to many inspiring creatives.
What projects are you working on right now?
Presently, I’m working on two poetry manuscripts. One, Between, that will be published later this year by RedBook Press, and another, The Empty Space Like an Ocean, which I haven’t submitted yet for publication. I’m also working on a prose piece that might be YA or maybe not. This project is in its infancy, although I have nearly 30,000 words completed.
Do you have any advice for future applicants?
Yes, in one word: apply! Be honest in your application and believe you can receive it. It might just open the door to be able to elevate your craft in ways you didn’t see possible. Thank you, Literary Arts, for this invaluable gift.
WRITING SAMPLE EXCERPT
from ‘You look prettier with your mouth shut / Calladita t eves mas bonita‘
… The street to la Fortaleza, or El Palacio de Santa Catalina, the governor’s blue and white mansion, was congested with more people than a midnight mass. Music was blaring from loudspeakers and seas of Puerto Rican flags were proudly carried by the protestors, some walking, some almost running, and all of them chanting slogans. A few were dressed in costumes and one or two vegigantes on stilts walked by her carrying signs. The protest on TV did not give it justice. This crowd was bigger than what she perceived on the TV news. A dancer with the flag danced and leaped as a group of male drummers with bongos walked alongside of her. Luz wondered if the little island of San Juan could tip over into the Atlantic, because of the sheer number of people marching on the cobblestone street. ¡Renuncia ya! Men and women carried signs and chanted for the governor and his goat’s blue eyes to renounce.
The sea of red, white, and blue Puerto Rican flags, waved in the warm breeze of the Atlantic, and the smell of frying pastelillos and sea salt gave the accumulation of people a certain levity as if it was a carnaval instead of a demonstration. And it seemed every single one of the protestors carried a sign. It was hard to see where she was walking.
Luz flowed along with the mass of bodies, some slamming into her shoulders as they marched, yelling “¡Que renuncie!” Luz marched along, allowing the bodies to brush against her without repeating the slogans. What the hell was she doing here? And God, she was wearing her old sweats, and Felipe’s discarded T shirt. The red one, the one he was so proud of wearing, that said, Make America Great Again, and her plastic slippers. She must be a sight! ¡Ay bendito! She walked like a triggerfish in a sea of bodies as they marched and shook their signs. The beer was gone, the can empty, and her throat felt dry.
A young woman, with a tattoo of a coqui sitting on a Puerto Rican flag on her very developed bicep and a black T-shirt with the slogan, ‘Calladita NO t eves mas bonita,’ came out of one of the alleys towards her. The girl with the tattoo grabbed her arm and pulled her off the street placing a clipboard and a pen towards Luz’s face. So close to this girl in one of the narrow entrances to a San Juan house door, Luz could smell the sweat smell of Maja soup, Luz’s favorite, and the girl’s own slight aroma.
“Have you signed the petition yet?”
Luz looked at the paper, signatures at least ten pages deep asking for the governor, with goat-blue eyes, to resign. The pages were curled on the edges, the moisture of the island and the many hands that must have touched those papers, Luz thought.
Luz had voted for the goat, just as Felipe had done. “Vamos, Luz, he is the only candidate that is any good, the others are jokes. You have to vote for him, no other choice. Come on woman, be smart!”
And yet here she was marching with an empty can of Corona and a pen in her hand, wanting another beer. The pen felt oddly alive in her right hand. With her other hand—the one with the empty beer can—she touched the side of her jaw, where she had felt the snapping of her tendon, were a ghost feeling still remained. The pen in her hand was solid. She looked at the girl with the tattoo of the coqui on her very developed bicep and noticed that the girl had speckled brown spots in her intense brown eyes. They crinkled at the corners expectantly. There was an honesty and vibrancy in those eyes. So, she signed the petition. It was the first petition she had ever signed in her forty years of life. The girl with the T-shirt and the frog tattoo thanked her and winked her left luminous eye and disappeared in the crowd with the clipboard. Luz looked around the crowd of protestors, feeling a strange satisfaction, and joined the ocean of bodies, carrying an empty can of Corona and a pen. She forgot to return the pen!
Originally published in CALYX.
JUDGE’S CITATION
“Díaz Ettinger pens a compelling and hilarious story of a young Puerto Rican woman who has had it with her deadbeat husband, and the patriarchy in general, but doesn’t know it yet. Her political awakening is both believable and surprising, demonstrating how huge changes in our inner worlds can mimic those in our outer worlds. Díaz Ettinger’s command of characterization, setting, plot, dialogue, and humor all add to the story’s impact.”
– Shannon Gibney
