Ph.D. Department of English, University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
M.F.A. Creative Writing, Fiction/Nonfiction, Antioch University Los Angeles.
B.A. Print Journalism and Spanish, University of New Mexico.
Lorinda Toledo’s (she/her) novel-in-progress, The Nature of Fire, was named first runner-up for the 2019 James Jones First Novel Fellowship. Her stories have been published in the Mississippi Review, The Normal School, and elsewhere. She earned a doctorate in literature with a creative dissertation from the University of Nevada Las Vegas, where she was a Barrick Graduate Fellow and a Black Mountain Institute Ph.D. Fellow. Her M.F.A. is in Creative Writing from Antioch University Los Angeles. She served as Fiction Editor at Witness literary magazine, Lunch Ticket, and Gathering: A Women Who Submit Anthology (Jamii Publishing, 2021), a showcase of diverse women and nonbinary writers.
Lorinda also holds a B.A. in Journalism from the University of New Mexico and worked with news organizations across the country, including the Associated Press’s Los Angeles bureau, the Albuquerque Tribune, LA Weekly, and The New York Times Student Journalism Institute. She was born and raised in New Mexico, while Los Angeles has been her home for more than a decade.
Lorinda joined Otis as Assistant Director of the Student Learning Center in Summer 2022 and currently teaches ENGL 107 Writing in the Digital Age. She has taught writing since 2013 at AULA and UNLV both as a tutor and in the classroom. As an educator, Lorinda seeks to empower students to intersect coursework with their lived experiences and career goals in a supportive environment.
2021 Ancinas Scholar, Community of Writers Fiction Workshop.
2021 Scholar, Jackson Hole Writers Conference.
2019 The Nature of Fire, First runner-up award, James Jones First Novel Fellowship.
2018–2019 Barrick Graduate Fellowship, University of Nevada Las Vegas.
2018 Summer Doctoral Research Fellowship, University of Nevada Las Vegas.
2015–2018 Black Mountain Institute Ph.D. Fellowship.
2013 Eloise Klein Healy Scholarship, M.F.A. in Creative Writing, Antioch University Los Angeles.
(Invited Readings & Interviews)
2022 In conversation with author Daniel Olivas, How to Date a Flying Mexican, Skylight Books, Los Angeles, CA.
2020 “Writers on Writing,” The Writers’ Exchange, Antioch University, online.
2020 UNLV Alumni Reading, The Twig Bookshop, San Antonio, TX.
2018 “What Grew From the Earth” BMI Ph.D. Fellows Reading, Black Mountain Institute/University of Nevada Las Vegas, Las Vegas, NV.
2017 Excerpt from The Nature of Fire, Book Show bookstore, Los Angeles, CA.
What Grew From the Earth, The Normal School, October 7, 2020.
The Burning We Hold (novel excerpt), Mississippi Review 46.3, March 2019, print.