Nicky Gonzalez joins us to discuss her Gothic debut novel, Mayra (2025, Random House), a story about two friends who reunite in a mysterious house in the Florida Everglades and uncover a hidden history. It’s a book that Karen Thompson Walker describes as "part coming-of-age story, part Twilight Zone episode, part thoughtful meditation on all of the ways that memory is itself a haunted house." 

Gonzalez hails from Hialeah, Florida. She earned her MFA from the University of Oregon, where she also taught fiction and composition. Her work has appeared in McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, BOMB Magazine, Kenyon Review Online, and Taco Bell Quarterly, among other publications. In 2021 she was a finalist for the Granum Foundation Prize.

Host: Davin Malasarn

The Artist's Statement is brought to you by The Granum Foundation.