Laura Roque
Lecturer, Ph.D. Candidate, Creative Writing and Literature
Pronouns: she/her/hers
Areas of Interest
- Latinx cultural production
- Cuban American Studies
- Fiction Writing
Contact Information
- Office: Virtual
- Phone: 805-756-1707
- Email: laroque@calpoly.edu
About Laura Roque
Laura Roque is the daughter of Cuban refugees and was raised in Hialeah, Florida. She is a Wallis Annenberg fellow at the University of Southern California and a PhD candidate in their creative writing program. Her dissertation explores Latina elderhood using a feminist decolonial framework, unpacks the Cuban Abuela figure and her critical importance in shaping discourse. Laura’s short stories explore the ever-expanding Cuban Diaspora, have won awards like the Kenyon Review’s Short Fiction Prize and Glimmer Train’s Fiction Open Contest. Her novel-in-progress, Aguanta, Diana, was a finalist for the Woodrow Wilson Dissertation Fellowship in Women's Studies and received support from the American Association of University Women with a Dissertation Fellowship, as a project important to advances in gender equity. Laura’s work explores cultural hybridity and is rooted in place. Her novel focuses on the Cuban American matrilineage, and the intergenerational experiences of Latinas navigating exile. Miami, Florida behaves like a complex and flawed character, a place of refuge, excess, and exploitation, a landscape shaped by fast wealth and waves of migration. When Laura isn’t working on her projects or teaching, she is decorating for holidays months in advance or taking her German Shepherd, D’Artagnan, on a long walk. Find links to her work at lauraroque.com.