For more than thirty years, Dennis Mathis has been a “reader and advisor” to Sandra Cisneros, MacArthur Award-winning author of the American classic The House on Mango Street and Caramelo. Ms. Cisneros — declared “the godmother of Latina fiction” by the New York Times — was recently awarded a National Medal of Arts by President Obama at a White House ceremony. Her breakthrough debut book, The House on Mango Street, is beloved by two generations of students and respected by scholars and publishing-industry insiders as one of the most influential books in the past 30 years.
Dennis Mathis, described in Sandra’s recent memoir as her “literary mentor” and “lifelong editor,” tells the story of the hilarious and poignant summer he shared a Cape Cod rental with Sandra and edited The House on Mango Street as it was coming out of her typewriter.
Dennis earned an M.F.A. from the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where he studied under Frank Conroy, Ian McEwan, Hilma Wolitzer, Frederick Busch, Edward Hoagland, Rosalyn Drexler, Vance Bourjaily, and Jack Leggett. He was also an assistant to the Iowa Workshop’s legendary former director Paul Engle.
Dennis received a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, was a resident writer at Yaddo, and has taught creative writing at The Hotchkiss School.