Island of Bones, a collection of creative nonfiction and personal essays, picks up where The Truth Book left off, exploring violence, sexuality, mothering, latinidad, poverty, class, and teaching in the academy today.

The collection includes such pieces as "Grip" (Fourth Genre), "Hip Joints" (Indiana Review), "Vesper Adest" (Seneca Review), "Edging" (Mid-American Review), "The Athens of the Midwest" (Cream City Review), "On Becoming Educated" (Scholar & Feminist Online), "What My Mother Told Me When I Found Her" (Hip Mama), and "Turn of Faith" (The New York Times Magazine).

The title essay, "Island of Bones," explores identity, family, and history on Cuban Key West and appears in The Other Latin@:  Writing Against a Singular Identity, edited by Blas Falconer and Lorraine M. López (University of Arizona).  "An Angle of Vision" is included in An Angle of Vision:  Women Writers on Their Poor and Working-Class Roots, edited by Lorraine M. López (University of Michigan), and "Farm Use" originally appeared in the anthology Without a Net:  The Female Experience of Growing Up Working Class, edited by Michelle Tea (Seal).

"Edging" was reprinted in Breeder:  Real-Life Stories from the New Generation of Mothers, edited by Ariel Gore and Bee Lavender (Seal), and "Grip" was reprinted in Between Song and Story:  Essays for the Twenty-First Century, edited by Sheryl St. Germain and Margaret Whitford (Autumn House).

The essays in Island of Bones have been taught at colleges and universities across the U.S.  Two of the pieces were selected as Notable Essays in Best American Essays collections.

Island of Bones is forthcoming from University of Nebraska Press in September 2012.