The landscape of contemporary literature has witnessed a profound shift in recent years, driven largely by the powerful, culturally defining narratives crafted by Dominican women. From literary trailblazers like Julia Alvarez, celebrated for classics such as How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents and In the Time of the Butterflies, to contemporary powerhouses like Elizabeth Acevedo, Dominican women writers have long interrogated the intricate layers of identity, migration, memory, race, womanhood, language, and belonging. Their contributions have not only expanded the boundaries of Dominican literature but have enriched Latine literature as a whole, steadily challenging entrenched stereotypes, preserving vital cultural memory, and offering deeply intimate portraits of life both on the island and throughout the diaspora.
While Dominican literature has never belonged exclusively to women, it is impossible to overlook how many of its most visible, celebrated, and influential voices today are, in fact, women. At a time when ongoing conversations surrounding representation, authorship, and inclusivity continue to evolve across the global publishing industry, Dominican women writers are not merely telling their own stories—they are actively redefining what Dominican storytelling looks like, sounds like, and achieves on the page.
It is against this vibrant cultural backdrop that the Dominican Writers organization held its landmark first conference since 2019, gathering writers, poets, and creatives from May 1 to May 2 at John Jay College in New York City.
"Honestly, the pandemic changed everything for us, as it did for so many organizations," reflects Dominican Writers founder Angela Abreu. "Once COVID arrived, everything went digital—our programming, our workshops that used to meet on Sundays in my apartment. A lot of people expected us to take the conference virtual, too, and I got asked about it more than once, but that never sat right with me. The conference has always been about being in the room together, and I wasn’t willing to compromise that."
Abreu initially began exploring the possibility of hosting the conference at City College in New York City, where the organization had successfully hosted events in the past. However, she soon encountered unexpected logistical and administrative obstacles driven by campus policies that restricted general public access and made it difficult for large communities to convene freely on university grounds.
"Putting together a conference of this magnitude takes enormous resources, coordination, and the right moment. We had to be intentional. We didn’t want to just put on an event," Abreu explains. "We wanted to recreate the experience of 2019, something that would feel meaningful and lasting for every writer who walked through those doors."
She continues, "With DWC 2026, we wanted to come back with something that truly honored where Dominican literature is right now, which is in such a powerful, exciting place. The goal was to give our community a room where they could see themselves, fully reflected, in the panelists, in the conversations, in the theme itself."
The two-day conference featured an extensive lineup of panels and interactive workshops, guided by moderators and panelists who were predominantly Dominican authors. The programming spanned a wide spectrum of literary forms and genres, ranging from discussions on how to break into the graphic novel movement and write middle-grade stories with clear purpose, to explorations of contemporary poetry, children’s literature, and modern romance. Several sessions were explicitly dedicated to the unique experiences and artistic lineages of Dominican women writers. Among them was the prominent panel titled "Inheritance & Intuition: Writing Dominican Women," which featured acclaimed authors Angie Cruz, Elizabeth Acevedo, Cleyvis Natera, and Natalie Guerrero, alongside a specialized workshop titled "Reclaiming La Madre: Writing the Dominican Woman Mother Wound," led by Dariana M. Pichardo, LMSW, MPA.
"I think Dominican women have always been storytellers. We carry the history of our families, our communities, our migrations. What’s shifted is that we now have the language, the platforms, and crucially, the permission to put those stories on the page and call them literature," Abreu says. "I also think there’s something about the urgency of our experience. Being Dominican, being a woman, being an immigrant, being Black, navigating all of that in a country that doesn’t always see you fully, that urgency demands expression. And Dominican women have answered that call loudly and beautifully."
The overarching theme for this year’s gathering was "Reclaiming Our Palabras." For Abreu, the timing could not have been more critical to host an event that underscores the absolute necessity of Dominicans reclaiming their own narratives and pushing back against persistent societal notions that their stories do not belong in the mainstream literary canon.
"We are living in a moment where our government is actively trying to erase us, pushing a narrative that we don’t contribute, that we don’t belong, that we are somehow less than. That is not just incorrect—it is a lie. We wanted this conference to be a direct response to it," she asserts. "Language has always been a site of tension for us. At home, Spanish was valued. It was how we loved each other, how we told our stories, how we kept our culture alive. But the moment we stepped outside, society told us something different. To soften our accents, to leave certain words at the door, to believe that the language of our homes had no place in ‘serious’ literature."
In a powerful tribute to literary lineage, the conference was officially dedicated to Julia Alvarez, who recently released her latest book, Visitations, a profound collection of poems drawn from across all seasons of her life, ranging from early childhood to her later years. Alvarez participated in a featured keynote conversation alongside Cleyvis Natera. During the session, the two authors discussed Alvarez’s enduring legacy as a pioneering writer, the ways in which her groundbreaking work granted generations of Dominican writers permission to see themselves reflected in literature, and the weight of the literary inheritance that Dominican women carry forward.
"Julia Alvarez is, in many ways, the reason organizations like DWA exist. She proved to a generation of Dominican women that we could write our way into the canon, that our stories were not too small or too foreign for the literary world," Abreu notes. "Dedicating DWC 2026 to her felt like the right way to honor that legacy, to say to her and to everyone in that room: we know where this path started, and we’re grateful. And the timing felt especially right with Visitations coming out. To celebrate her newest work while also celebrating what she has meant to all of us, that felt like a full-circle moment."
Although there has arguably never been a more opportune time for Dominican women writers to break into the traditional publishing sphere, structural barriers remain a formidable obstacle. As Abreu points out, "the gatekeeping is still very real." This persistent reality serves as a primary driving force behind the creation of Dominican Writers and underscores why organizing an in-person conference remains vital, providing aspiring writers with direct access to essential professional resources and mentorship networks.
"There’s this persistent idea in traditional publishing that there is only room for one Dominican story, one Dominican voice at a time. Authors are still being told their work is ‘too niche,’ or being asked to sand down the very things that make their writing distinctly ours—the Spanish, the cultural references, the complexity," she explains. "At DWA, we try to meet writers where they are. That means education around the publishing process and community, so writers don’t feel like they’re navigating it alone, and increasingly supporting authors who choose to publish independently. Because the traditional route is not the only route, and we want our writers to know that."
Despite these ongoing hurdles, there is an undeniable energy coursing through contemporary Dominican literature. Opportunities, institutional resources, writers’ workshops, conferences, and diverse publishing spaces are expanding at an unprecedented rate, fueling a robust and growing market demand for narratives that are nuanced, intersectional, and deeply human. At a time when cultural conversations regarding narrative authority continue to evolve across industries, Dominican writers are demonstrating definitively that their stories are far from niche—they are essential to the broader literary fabric.
"My hope is that one day a Dominican author doesn’t have to fight to be taken seriously," Abreu concludes. "That the stories we tell are received with the same weight and curiosity as any other literary tradition."
