WRITERLY BIOS,
PUBLICATIONS,
AWARDS,
PEDAGOGY,
CLASSES,
CONSULTATIONS.
<50 WORD BIO
For all publications and event-marketing, please use this bio and either this headshot or the one below. Note that I publish under "K. Degala-Paraíso."
K. Degala-Paraíso (she/they) is a Los Angeles-based, Filipinx-American experimental writer. Her work has appeared in ANMLY, [PANK] Magazine, Okay Donkey Magazine, and elsewhere; and has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. She teaches creative writing independently and through GrubStreet. More at kdegalaparaiso.com.*
AN EXTENDED BIO
I said my first word of this lifetime while sitting on the stoop of my childhood home in Brooklyn, NY. The word was "book" — and thus, I set my fate.
I wrote my first story when I was 5 years old: it explored the nuanced, emotional relationship between my sensitized house and my family. I continued writing short stories all the way up to college. Then, despite my best attempts to trade my writerly inclinations for more lucrative pursuits, I could not help but take writing class after writing class after writing class at Pitzer College...until I inadvertently met all of the requirements (and then some) for a B.A. in English/World Literature (Creative Writing track). For my capstone project, I wrote a 66-page collection of hybrid works concerning diasporic women's role in negotiating culture and environment. The title-story of the collection, “Morena,” was awarded the 2018 Bea Matas Hollfelder Award.
Since graduating, I have been teaching virtual creative writing classes through GrubStreet, a leading creative writing center in the U.S. In 2023, I launched a series of independently hosted classes. Scroll down for information on my pedagogy and upcoming classes.
I have also worked as a Teaching Assistant in the Department of Comparative Literature at University of California Los Angeles (UCLA). In Fall 2022, I TA'd for Professor Kathleen Komar, PhD's course, "Survey of Literature: Age of Enlightenment to 20th Century."
In 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024, I served as a creative writing judge for Bow Seat's Annual Ocean Awareness Contest, "a platform for globally-based young people (ages 11-18) to learn about environmental issues through art-making and creative communication, explore their relationship to a changing world, and become advocates for positive change."
My own writing attempts to challenge conventions of craft and sucker-punch you in the gut. I primarily write experimental/hybrid, creative nonfiction/memoir, and prose poetry. My secret ingredient: a dash of the strange/mystical/speculative. My current project meditates on mental health and chaotic sisters. You can peruse my published works below.
If you are seeking a writing consultant, editor, artistic collaborator, or teacher, contact me here.
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PUBLICATIONS, INTERVIEWS, & AWARDS
The Slaughter of Wild Boars
Penumbra Online,
forthcoming (Fall 2024 Issue).
*selected as Staff Favorite
I am in a red dress at Les Ambassadeurs, an ekphrastic poem after Edgar Degas
Eunoia Review,
November 12, 2024.
"There is a room full of people..."
Writing to Recover & Reimagine,
interview hosted by Shawna Rodrigues,
Author Express, Episode 16, 2023.
"I have all of these places inside of my body now."
It's Been Years, a golden shovel after Mary Oliver
Black Fox Literary Magazine,
Issue #24, 2023.
"mere minutes after i got the call that i never expected to receive i began to Look..."
Philippines 2022
The Lumiere Review,
Issue 11, 2022.
"I must keep my correspondence short in case of interception. The kalabaw must cross the river. Be safe. And soon, I will be with you on the other side."
A History of Skin
Anomaly,
ANMLY #35, 2022.
"Mama [grandmother] started coming to me in my dreams before she was even dead."
A shortlist of cheeses and wines I would take home for free when I worked in the Specialty Department at Whole Foods
Okay Donkey Magazine,
May 2, 2022.
"The parmigiano reggiano crumbles when you slice it, and I remember how the world crumbles beyond this ranch where we temporarily live..."
My Girlfriend Attempts To Reincarnate Her Aunt, Barely Two Weeks After She Died
[PANK] Magazine,
PANK 16 & 17 in print, 2022.
"I lead the caterpillars in a Socratic seminar, intent on answering the question: is this what healthy grief looks like?
After conferring all afternoon, the 7,200 caterpillars are still at an impasse."
This Is How You Haunt Me
miniskirt magazine,
Issue 08, 2021.
"One year after you witness them filling your grave, come find me.
Please — come find me."
Winner of the Bea Matas Hollfelder Award for Creative Writing,
2018.
...awared by the English and World Literature Department for "Morena," the titular short story of my capstone creative writing project.
PED·A·GO·GY
/ˈpedəˌɡäjē/
n. the method and practice of teaching, otherwise "the art of teaching"
n. the theory and practice of learning, and how this process influences/is influenced by the social, political, and psychological development of learners.
I base my pedagogy in: the popular education model of Myles Horton and the Highlander Folk School, the applied politics of bell hooks's "Toward a Revolutionary Feminist Pedagogy", and the principles of adrienne maree brown's Emergent Strategy. Because my classes are writer-centered and participatory, I require mutual respect, curiosity, and empathy from my students.
I encourage my students to release Western conventions of both craft and learning. Writing, at its best, is a practice of liberation. Let us unbound our form, technique, and voice. Let us give into our inner creative. Let our language not sweat.
In teaching, I prioritize care and empiricism: affirmations, colloquialisms, personal experience, intuition, ancestral knowings, sentipensante, tingles-and-shivers, and real-time dialectics are just as rigorous and informative as any academia-based approaches/materials.
In my classes, expect experimentation and play; adaptability; and deep conversation.
UPCOMING CLASSES (18+)
For more information, including what you can expect in class, payment details, scholarships, and registration: click on the class flyer, then click on "REGISTER HERE" below the image. If you have questions or concerns, don't hesitate to contact me here!
PAST CLASSES
For class descriptions, please contact me.
The Next Step: Workshopping & Revising for Prose Writers
5-week adult course hosted independently, remote via Zoom
8/19-23/2024 (SOLD OUT), 8/15/2023-9/5/2023
Write with Friends: Writing Group for Self-Directed Writers
7-week adult course hosted independently, remote via Zoom
7/10-8/21/2024
Finding the Backbone for Your Memoir
3-hour adult workshop thru GrubStreet, remote via Zoom
8/16/2024 (SOLD OUT)
Capture the Profound: Magical Realism Workshop
3-hour adult workshop thru GrubStreet, remote via Zoom
7/5/2024, 5/6/2023
Food is Family is Culture: A Generative Workshop for Nonfiction Writers of Color
3-hour adult workshop thru GrubStreet, remote via Zoom
5/3/2024 (SOLD OUT)
Writing Fiction for a Better World
3-hour teen workshop thru GrubStreet, remote via Zoom
4/13/2024
Writing the Disabled Body in Prose
3-hour adult workshop thru GrubStreet, remote via Zoom
4/6/2024
Writing Group for LGBTQ+ Writers
6-week adult course thru GrubStreet, remote via Zoom
3/4-4/7/2024
Writing the Breakup Story
3-hour adult workshop thru GrubStreet, remote via Zoom
2/17/2024
"Choose Your Own Adventure" Stories
3-hour teen workshop thru GrubStreet, remote via Zoom
1/20/2024
Our Planet, Our Stories: Nature Writing
4-hour adult seminar thru GrubStreet, remote via Zoom
11/14/23 (SOLD OUT)
The Art of Multiperspectivity
3-hour adult workshop thru GrubStreet, remote via Zoom
10/7/23, 10/22/22, 7/22/22 (SOLD OUT)
Crash Course: Submitting for Publication in Literary Magazines
3-hour adult workshop hosted independently, remote via Zoom
9/9/2023
The Next Step: Workshopping & Revising for Prose Writers
4-week adult course hosted independently, remote via Zoom
8/15/2023-9/5/2023
Activist Writing
Weeklong teen workshop thru GrubStreet, remote via Zoom
8/7-11/2023
6 Weeks, 6 Stories
6-week adult course thru GrubStreet, remote via Zoom
7/20/2023-8/31/2023
Writing Relationships with Care and Complexity
Weeklong teen workshop thru GrubStreet, remote via Zoom
7/10-14/2023
Writing Fiction for a Better World
3-hour adult workshop thru GrubStreet, remote via Zoom
7/7/2023
Social Justice & Self-Care through Writing
1.5-hour workshop for Upstream Education's Student Task Force, remote via Zoom
6/27/2023
Writing Queer Love Stories
4-week adult course thru GrubStreet, remote via Zoom
6/26/2023-7/17/2023
Advanced Memoir Workshop (by application only)
8-week adult course thru GrubStreet, remote via Zoom
6/21/2023-8/23/2023 (SOLD OUT)
The Generator
7-week adult course hosted independently, remote via Zoom
6/13/2023-8/1/2023
The Spoken and Unspoken: Writing Dialogue and Gestures
3-hour teen workshop thru GrubStreet, remote via Zoom
5/13/2023
Creative Writing Alumni Panel
Featured panelist for a reading, talk, and Q&A for Pitzer College's Creative Writing major capstone class
4/19/2023
Spliced: Writing Interwoven Narratives
2-part adult workshop thru GrubStreet, remote via Zoom
4/1+8/2023
Imagining New Worlds: World-Building and Speculative Fiction
3-hour cohort workshop thru The Queer Muslim Project's Queer Writers Room, remote via Zoom
3/11/2023
Tough Love: Writing Difficult Family Stories
2-part adult workshop thru GrubStreet, remote via Zoom
3/4+11/2023
Moments in Love or Otherwise: Capturing Relationships
3-hour adult workshop thru GrubStreet, remote via Zoom
1/28/23, 10/8/22 (SOLD OUT), 4/1/22 (SOLD OUT)
Bland Story No More: Symbolism, Subplots, and Spice Galore!
3-hour teen workshop thru GrubStreet, remote via Zoom
1/21/23
Home is a Verb: Writing Immigrant Stories
3-hour adult workshop thru GrubStreet, remote via Zoom
12/16/22
The Art of Multiperspectivity
3-hour teen workshop thru GrubStreet, remote via Zoom
11/19/22
Home, Belonging, and Roots
1.5-hour workshop thru Boston Writers of Color,
remote via Zoom
11/16/22
Wit & Whimsy: Writing Funny
3-hour teen workshop thru GrubStreet, remote via Zoom
9/17/22
It's Complicated: Entry Points for Loaded Relationships
3-hour adult workshop thru GrubStreet, remote via Zoom
8/12/22 (SOLD OUT)
Disrupt the Present: Activist Writing
Weeklong teen class thru GrubStreet, remote via Zoom
7/11-15/22, 8/3-7/20
Writing As Activism
6-week adult course thru GrubStreet, remote via Zoom
7/8/22-8/12/22
Letters from the Beyond: Sci-Fi/Fantasy in Epistolary Form
3-hour teen workshop thru GrubStreet, remote via Zoom
5/14/22
Child's Play: How to Write Characters Under 18
3-hour adult workshop thru GrubStreet, remote via Zoom
5/7/22
Creative Writing in a Chaotic World
Weeklong teen class thru GrubStreet, remote via Zoom
2/22-25/22
Poetry As Activism
3-hour teen workshop thru GrubStreet, remote via Zoom
3/12/22, 11/21/20
Write Yourself Outta That Rut: Poets' Edition
3-hour teen workshop thru GrubStreet, remote via Zoom
10/16/21, 4/10/21
Animals, Land, & Plants, Oh My: Nature As Metaphor
3-hour teen workshop thru GrubStreet, remote via Zoom
9/18/21
Animals, Land, & Plants, Oh My: Nature As Metaphor
3-hour adult workshop thru GrubStreet, remote via Zoom
9/11/21
Love in Mundane Forms
Weeklong teen class thru GrubStreet, remote via Zoom
7/19-23/21
July Week of Creative Writing
Weeklong teen class thru GrubStreet, remote via Zoom
7/6-9/21
Defying Genre: Exploring Experimental Writing
3-hour teen workshop thru GrubStreet, remote via Zoom
5/15/21
Brown Bag Lunch Writing Session
1-hour adult workshop thru GrubStreet; remote via Zoom
4/7/21
CONSULTATIONS
Get individualized guidance on your current writing projects and ambitions!
I offer 60-minute consultations via Zoom. During these consultations, you and I will spend time:
getting to know each other, your project, and your process;
discussing your short-term and long-term writing goals;
answering specific questions you may have about craft/process; and
creating accountability and sustainability practices to keep you holistically supported.
You are the true navigator of the conversation: we'll devote the bulk of our time toward whatever it is that you'd like to focus on. My goal is for you to leave our consultations with the clarity you're craving, and the inspiration that you didn't know you needed.
I offer two types of consultations, both on "no questions asked" sliding scales.
To receive the full info packet, and to schedule: send me a message here.
SPATHIPHYLLUM
You tip a tub of water in my direction, never
fully dowsing my leaves, only ever
gifting me a dainty dribble — you tease,
with your half-drawn blinds, only a lick
of sunshine. The breeze stops
against the window’s glass.
I shoot out new growth, stretching for something
greater, something better, some kind
of wilderness
K. Degala-Paraíso, Summer 2022
.
*wow, you really went looking for this asterisks. I admire your dedication.
Archive of last lines used for my <50 word writer's bio; I write a new one for every new publication. Use whichever at your discretion:
"When she's not writing, you can catch K. wreaking culinary havoc in the kitchen."
"When she's not writing, catch K. sunbathing alongside her Calendula seedlings in Southern California."
"When she's not writing, catch K. organizing toward liberation."
"When she's not writing, catch K. hauling ass up the Santa Monica Mountains."
"When she's not writing, catch K. bickering with her ghosts as she wanders the streets of Los Angeles."
"She loves key lime pie dearly."
"Sometimes, she teaches creative writing. Other times, she refinishes furniture."
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