Katherine Vaz
Published Works
Our Lady of the Artichokes and Other Portuguese-American Stories (University of Nebraska Press, 2008)
Saudade (St. Martin's Press, 1994)
Mariana (Aliform Publishing, 2004)
Fado and Other Stories (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1997)
Bio
Right at a point in life when one should be settling into place—mid-forties—everything changed for me: a marriage ended and I embarked on a five-year-long odyssey of going here-and-there, finally settling on the East Coast, leaving behind my forever-beloved California. And it was all I could do to write short. Nothing seemed long or lasting; I couldn't summon up the energy to work on a large canvas. I needed a constant sense of completion—the very opposite of the true, oft-preached counsel of diving into the process. But my process, over the last number of years, meant short, and then come up for air, and look around, and try not to panic.
I wrote the first piece in this collection while housesitting for a friend in New York. Later on, a highly sensitive friend (she "thinks in color," like the heroine of my first novel) said that it struck her as a " New York story," which was odd, and I told her so: the setting was in California. The characters were Californian. And it was based upon a frightening, strange occurrence in my youth, when the infamous Zodiac killer was on the loose in the Bay Area. But my friend said, "It feels like New York." Perhaps I was starting to feel at home?
I wrote in other people’s homes; I wrote in my old upstairs bedroom when I was visiting my childhood home. And then I wrote the last piece, "Lisbon Story," when I’d bought a home of my own and had a rewarding job.
At the end of my search-for-a-home travels, I must have published about two dozen stories, and I put my new collection together in a way that felt magical: I suddenly opened my files one rainy afternoon and asked myself what might belong together: I'd written enough to fill two novels by this time. I recall how swiftly it fell together.
When the call came that I'd won the prize, I almost wept. I did, in fact, do just that, later on. Because it has been over eight years since my last book, and simple as that, a phonecall comes to put a body and soul back on a blessed path. I could see "Hilda Raz" on my Caller I.D., and we laughed a bit, because our last names rhymed.
Website
http://katherinevaz.com/
News Articles
"Vaz is a soulful writer who understands her protagonists' complex lives, as well as the way religious beliefs can assert themselves most powerfully after leaving native soil."--Publishers Weekly
"In Katherine Vaz's new volume of short fiction, she demonstrates brilliantly that rare quality of truly fine writing—a deeply profound knowingness about the human condition. Our Lady of the Artichokes and Other Portuguese-American Stories will even more widely prove what is already clear to many: Katherine Vaz is a master of the short story."—Robert Olen Butler, author of the Pulitzer Prize–winning A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain
"Katherine Vaz is an old-fashioned storyteller in the best sense. Her work is sensual, rich in detail and layered history. Her stories overflow with incident and feeling. Other writers present fruit plates. Vaz serves cornucopias."—Allegra Goodman, author of Intuition and Kaaterskill Falls
"Katherine Vaz captures brilliantly the tragicomedy of people caught between ancient superstitions and modern values, people longing to cross over from one culture to another, from loneliness to love, from folly to grace. Her stories glow with a fairy-tale magic, yet they also feel uniquely and delightfully new."—Julia Glass, author of Three Junes and The Whole World Over
Our Lady of the Artichokes and Other Portuguese-American Stories (University of Nebraska Press, 2008)
Saudade (St. Martin's Press, 1994)
Mariana (Aliform Publishing, 2004)
Fado and Other Stories (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1997)
Bio
Right at a point in life when one should be settling into place—mid-forties—everything changed for me: a marriage ended and I embarked on a five-year-long odyssey of going here-and-there, finally settling on the East Coast, leaving behind my forever-beloved California. And it was all I could do to write short. Nothing seemed long or lasting; I couldn't summon up the energy to work on a large canvas. I needed a constant sense of completion—the very opposite of the true, oft-preached counsel of diving into the process. But my process, over the last number of years, meant short, and then come up for air, and look around, and try not to panic.
I wrote the first piece in this collection while housesitting for a friend in New York. Later on, a highly sensitive friend (she "thinks in color," like the heroine of my first novel) said that it struck her as a " New York story," which was odd, and I told her so: the setting was in California. The characters were Californian. And it was based upon a frightening, strange occurrence in my youth, when the infamous Zodiac killer was on the loose in the Bay Area. But my friend said, "It feels like New York." Perhaps I was starting to feel at home?
I wrote in other people’s homes; I wrote in my old upstairs bedroom when I was visiting my childhood home. And then I wrote the last piece, "Lisbon Story," when I’d bought a home of my own and had a rewarding job.
At the end of my search-for-a-home travels, I must have published about two dozen stories, and I put my new collection together in a way that felt magical: I suddenly opened my files one rainy afternoon and asked myself what might belong together: I'd written enough to fill two novels by this time. I recall how swiftly it fell together.
When the call came that I'd won the prize, I almost wept. I did, in fact, do just that, later on. Because it has been over eight years since my last book, and simple as that, a phonecall comes to put a body and soul back on a blessed path. I could see "Hilda Raz" on my Caller I.D., and we laughed a bit, because our last names rhymed.
Website
http://katherinevaz.com/
News Articles
"Vaz is a soulful writer who understands her protagonists' complex lives, as well as the way religious beliefs can assert themselves most powerfully after leaving native soil."--Publishers Weekly
"In Katherine Vaz's new volume of short fiction, she demonstrates brilliantly that rare quality of truly fine writing—a deeply profound knowingness about the human condition. Our Lady of the Artichokes and Other Portuguese-American Stories will even more widely prove what is already clear to many: Katherine Vaz is a master of the short story."—Robert Olen Butler, author of the Pulitzer Prize–winning A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain
"Katherine Vaz is an old-fashioned storyteller in the best sense. Her work is sensual, rich in detail and layered history. Her stories overflow with incident and feeling. Other writers present fruit plates. Vaz serves cornucopias."—Allegra Goodman, author of Intuition and Kaaterskill Falls
"Katherine Vaz captures brilliantly the tragicomedy of people caught between ancient superstitions and modern values, people longing to cross over from one culture to another, from loneliness to love, from folly to grace. Her stories glow with a fairy-tale magic, yet they also feel uniquely and delightfully new."—Julia Glass, author of Three Junes and The Whole World Over
