Richie Narvaez (born 1965) is an American author and professor. In 2020, he won an

Agatha Award The Agatha Awards, named for Agatha Christie Dame Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie, Lady Mallowan, (; 15 September 1890 – 12 January 1976) was an English people, English author known for her 66 detective novels and 14 short ...

and an

Anthony Award The Anthony Awards are literary awards for mystery writers presented at the Bouchercon World Mystery Convention since 1986. The awards are named for Anthony Boucher (1911–1968), one of the founders of the Mystery Writers of America. Categori ...

for his novel ''Holly Hernandez and the Death of Disco.'' His work focuses on the Puerto Rican and

Nuyorican Nuyorican is a portmanteau word blending "New York" (or "Nueva York" in Spanish) and "Puerto Rican," referring to Puerto Ricans located in or around New York City, their culture, or their descendants (especially those raised or currently livin ...

experience.

Early life and education

Narvaez's parents came to New York from Puerto Rico, and he was born and raised in

Williamsburg, Brooklyn Williamsburg is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Brooklyn, bordered by Greenpoint to the north; Bedford–Stuyvesant to the south; Bushwick and East Williamsburg to the east; and the East River to the west. It was an independe ...

. He attended

Brooklyn Technical High School Brooklyn Technical High School, commonly called Brooklyn Tech and administratively designated High School 430, is a public specialized high school in New York City that specializes in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. It is on ...

. After graduating from the

State University of New York at Stony Brook Stony Brook University (SBU), officially the State University of New York at Stony Brook, is a public university, public research university in Stony Brook, New York, United States, on Long Island. Along with the University at Buffalo, it is on ...

with a master's degree, he worked as a journalist for magazines such as ''

Cable Guide A cable guide is a fitting or part of a bicycle frame which guides a piece of bare inner bowden cable around a corner. Most multi-speed bicycles have cable guides to get the derailleur cables past the bottom bracket The bottom bracket on a bi ...

'' and ''

TV Guide TV Guide is an American digital media In mass communication, digital media is any media (communication), communication media that operates in conjunction with various encoded machine-readable data formats. Digital content can be created, vi ...

''. He currently teaches at the

Fashion Institute of Technology The Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) is a public college under the State University of New York, in New York City. It focuses on art, business, design, mass communication, and technology connected to the fashion industry. It was founded in ...

in New York City and at

Sarah Lawrence College Sarah Lawrence College (SLC) is a Private university, private liberal arts college in Yonkers, New York, United States. Founded as a Women's colleges in the United States, women's college in 1926, Sarah Lawrence College has been coeducational ...

Career

Narvaez writes in multiple genres about

Puerto Rico ; abbreviated PR), officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, is a Government of Puerto Rico, self-governing Caribbean Geography of Puerto Rico, archipelago and island organized as an Territories of the United States, unincorporated territo ...

, urban culture, and social issues. He has a "penchant for placing complex and intriguing Latinx characters at the center of his work." His short stories have appeared in a number of magazines and anthologies, including ''

Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine ''Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine'' is a bi-monthly American digest size fiction magazine specializing in crime fiction, particularly detective fiction, and mystery fiction. Launched in fall 1941 by Mercury Press, ''EQMM'' is named after the fic ...

,'' ''

Mississippi Review The University of Southern Mississippi (Southern Miss or USM) is a public research university with its main campus in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. It is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools to award bachelor's, master's, ...

,'' ''Storyglossia,'' and ''Long Island Noir'' His first book, ''Roachkiller and Other Stories,'' a collection of short stories, was listed by ''Book Riot'' as one of the 100 Must-Read Works of Noir. Narvaez's first novel ''Hipster Death Rattle'' explores

gentrification Gentrification is the process whereby the character of a neighborhood changes through the influx of more Wealth, affluent residents (the "gentry") and investment. There is no agreed-upon definition of gentrification. In public discourse, it has ...

and

displacement Displacement may refer to: Physical sciences Mathematics and physics *Displacement (geometry), is the difference between the final and initial position of a point trajectory (for instance, the center of mass of a moving object). The actual path ...

in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The book was optioned for CBS TV Studios as a possible TV series for

the CW The CW Network, LLC (commonly referred to as The CW or simply CW) is an American commercial broadcast television network which is controlled by Nexstar Media Group through a 75% ownership interest. The network's name is derived from the firs ...

. His second novel, ''Holly Hernandez and the Death of Disco,'' a

young adult In medicine and the social sciences, a young adult is generally a person in the years following adolescence, sometimes with some overlap. Definitions and opinions on what qualifies as a young adult vary, with works such as Erik Erikson's stages ...

murder mystery, received positive reviews. The book received an

for Best Children's/YA Book and an

for Best Juvenile/Young Adult. In 2020, Narvaez published another collection of short stories, ''Noiryorican.'' The title is a

portmanteau In linguistics, a blend—also known as a blend word, lexical blend, or portmanteau—is a word formed by combining the meanings, and parts of the sounds, of two or more words together.

of " noir" and "

." The book was nominated for an Anthony Award for Best Anthology. Narvaez's speculative fiction short story “Room for Rent,” from the anthology ''Latinx Rising: An Anthology of Science Fiction and Fantasy,'' “artfully extrapolates out from past Puerto Rican migration into the future through an allegory involving migrant worker space aliens." In September 2020,

LeVar Burton Levardis Robert Martyn Burton Jr. (born February 16, 1957) is an American actor, director, and television host. He played Geordi La Forge in '' Star Trek: The Next Generation'' (1987–1994), Kunta Kinte in the ABC miniseries ''Roots'' (1977 ...

read the story on his podcast '' LeVar Burton Reads.'' In 2022, he joined the advisory board of

Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press was the university press of the University of Cambridge. Granted a letters patent by King Henry VIII in 1534, it was the oldest university press in the world. Cambridge University Press merged with Cambridge Assessme ...

's Cambridge Elements in Crime Narratives, which publishes research from scholars and practitioners of crime writing.

Works

Novels

''Hipster Death Rattle'' (2019)
''Holly Hernandez and the Death of Disco'' (2020)

Short story collections

''Roachkiller and Other Stories'' (2012)
''Noiryorican'' (2020)

Awards and honors

2013 Spinetingler Award for Best Anthology/Short Story Collection for ''Roachkiller and Other Stories''
2015 ''Punchnel’s'' Hybrid Flash Fiction Contest: “How to Write Flash Fiction”
2018 Named Artist in Residence at the Morris Park Library
2019 Best of 2019 Suspense Thriller by ''Suspense Magazine'' for ''Hipster Death Rattle''
2020 Agatha Award for ''Holly Hernandez and the Death of Disco''
2020 Anthony Award for ''Holly Hernandez and the Death of Disco''
2021 Bronx Recognizes Its Own (BRIO) Award, from the

Bronx Council on the Arts The Bronx ( ) is the northernmost of the five boroughs of New York City, coextensive with Bronx County, in the U.S. state of New York. It shares a land border with Westchester County to its north; to its south and west, the New York City bo ...

2022 SUNY Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Adjunct Teaching
2024 Letras Boricuas Fellowship, from the Flamboyan Foundation

References

External links

Official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Narvaez, Richie 1965 births American writers Puerto Rican writers People from Williamsburg, Brooklyn Writers from Brooklyn Living people Puerto Rican short story writers Anthony Award winners