About
Letisia Cruz is a Cuban-American writer and artist. She is the author of Bigwig's Illustrated Guide To Birds (Tolsun Books, forthcoming 2024), Migrations & Other Exiles (Lost Horse Press, 2023), selected by Dzvinia Orlowsky as winner of the 2022 Idaho Prize for Poetry, and The Lost Girls Book of Divination (Tolsun Books, 2018). She is the recipient of a 2022 artist grant from the St. Petersburg Arts Alliance and was selected as a 2022 Dali Dozen Emerging Artist for her project Rituales: An Exploration of Faith in the Caribbean. Her writing and artwork have appeared in [PANK], Ninth Letter, The Acentos Review, Gulf Stream, Saw Palm, Third Coast, Duende, Moko, 300 Days of Sun, and Black Fox Literary Magazine, among others. She is a graduate of Fairleigh Dickinson University’s MFA program and lives in Saint Petersburg, Florida with her partner and their three cats.
Artist Statement
My illustrations are rendered primarily in pen and ink on paper. I am inspired by strong, trailblazing women who push boundaries, forge their own paths, and define for themselves what it means to achieve success. I am also inspired by the take-no-shit attitude of the 1990s and transformative self-expression made possible through art, poetry, and music. My work often depicts tattooed women straddling light and dark, gazing into their own abyss, and defining their sense of self. Much of my work is infused with elements of nature and centers around the seasons, the passing of time, and the theme of rebirth.
Bigwig's Illustrated Guide To Birds
“Bigwig's Illustrated Guide to Birds is a poignant, life-affirming look at the marvels of nature, love, and flight featuring gorgeous drawings and written from the perspective of a very wise and observant cat. I loved this gorgeous book and its message to humans of all ages.."
—Martha Joy RoseArtist, activist, and founder of
The Museum of Motherhood
"Put down your Sibley and slowly back away. Bigwig has a guide that will not help you distinguish a House Finch from a Cassin's Finch, but will help you remember that "Birds are transformative by nature, / connected to the infinite." In that way, Letisia Cruz's love-lush graphic poem Bigwig's Illustrated Guide to Birds resembles the birds that populate it: Cruz's book, too, is transformative and connected to the infinite."
—H. L. Hix
Rain Inscription
