Carolina Rivera Escamilla: Bilingual writer, theater actor, documentarian from El Salvador based in Los Angeles, California.

Raised in El Salvador, Rivera Escamilla completed a theater arts education at the Centro Nacional de Artes in the capital San Salvador during the Salvadoran Civil War. Forced into exile soon after completing her secondary education, she was welcomed with political asylum status in Canada. She eventually joined her family in exile in Los Angeles, California. She found southern California a bit culturally starved at first, but soon enjoyed becoming a Central American cultural promoter and performer, long associated with creating culturally relevant theatrical pieces she wrote, produced and directed. This took place among other arts events she helped create within and for communities, schools, and cultural centers.

During this same time, she began university studies which led her to complete a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature with an emphasis in creative writing and Spanish Literature at University of California, Los Angeles. While still a student at UCLA, an early version of one of her creative short stories was published in the University of Texas, Austin anthology publication analecta24. Soon after her graduation, one of her professors encouraged her to apply to pursue becoming a Fellow of the Pen America Emerging Voices Program, through which she was mentored to write a book of short stories.

Regularly published in anthologies, online-lit magazines, literary magazines, and in newspapers in both Spanish and English, World Stage Press, Los Angeles, published her book of short stories, entitled …after… in 2015. Since the 2015 publication, …after… is utilized as part of reading curriculum in several colleges and universities. In March 2015, she was invited to speak as a writer, cultural leader and artist to the European Parliament at the International Women’s Conference: Women for Change, Change for Women in Brussels, Belgium. In November 2019, Rivera Escamilla was invited as a poet to speak and to present her work at a “gallery talk event,” as a complement to the Shirin Neshat’s photography and film art exhibition at The Broad Museum in Los Angeles.

Rivera Escamilla is the director, writer, and producer of the documentary Manlio Argueta, Poets and Volcanoes.

In her writing Rivera Escamilla broadens the horizons of the reading public with regards to its understanding of Latin America’s original and diverse themes. She brings Latin America to life for both English and Spanish reading audiences, by bringing into view stories from her own culture that stand in contrast to Hollywood stereotypes and to other distortions about the Latin American reality.

Rivera Escamilla has finished a collection of poems for theater, and is currently writing a novel, even as she is finishing translation of her published book of short stories …after… into Spanish.