Portfolio of Published Works

DahliaSeason - Available Spring of 2007
Chicana. Goth. Dykling. Desiree Garcia knows she's weird and a weirdo magnet. To extinguish her strangeness, her parents ship her to Saint Michael's Catholic High School, then to Mexico, but neurology can't be snuffed out so easily: Screwy brain chemistry holds the key to Desiree's madness. As fellow crazies sense a kinship with her, Desiree attracts a coterie of both wanted and unwanted admirers, including a pair of racist deathrock sisters, a pretty Hispanic girl who did time in California's most infamous mental asylum, and a transnational stalker with a pronounced limp.

As high school graduation nears, Desiree's weirdness turns from charming to alarming. Plagued by increasingly bizarre thoughts and urges, Desiree convinces herself she's schizophrenic, despite assurance otherwise. In college, she finds Rae, an ex-carnie trannyboi, who becomes the June Carter to her Johnny Cash. With Rae's help, Desiree answers the riddle of her insanity and names her disease.

Combining the spark of Michelle Tea, the comic angst of Augusten Burroughs, and the warmth of Sandra Cisneros, Mexican American author Myriam Gurba has created a territory all her own. Dahlia Season not only contains the title novella, but also several of Gurba's acclaimed stories.

Praise for Myriam Gurba and Dahlia Season

"Bursting with street language and dangerous detail, [Dahlia Season] gives equal play to the audacious, the introspective, and the comedic and [Gurba's] apparent lust for literary risk-taking fills the collection with twists and shocks, jolting the reader with unexpected instances of violence, sex, cruelty, or honesty...[This collection] may become a touchstone for aspiring queer writers looking for their culture within the pages of a book as well as the impetus to get their own freaky lives into print."
Michelle Tea for the San Francisco Bay Guardian link

"Finally, a book about high school weirdos that doesn't feature outcasts pining to be in the popular crowd...fresh...hilarious. "
Bust

"Gurba is obviously a fearless writer, who is willing to chart new terrain... [her] collection provides a glimpse into a truly original collection of characters and their lives. "
Lambda Book Report

"Myriam Gurba's sensual, precise prose is addictive. The four short stories that open Dahlia Season seduce and hit hard...This collection lavishes love, recognition, and respect on anyone with Tourette's or other behavior disorders; it also kicks down relief and acceptance for the parts in all of us that misbehave."
Bitch

"In honest prose peppered with sardonic humor, Gurba transforms her misfits into people who...are not much different from the rest of the world...a strong, sincere literary voice."
Daniel Olivas for El Paso Times

"[E]xplosive...Dahlia Season [is] for all of us, in our manifest weirdness."
Venuszine link

"A fresh, edgy voice."
The Advocate

"Comic and warm and redemptive."
The Austin Chronicle

"Stunning...[With] her frank, moody prose, [Gurba] manages to take an almost ludicrously specific set of circumstances and make them feel universal."
Portland Mercury News

"Captivating...[Gurba has] genetic artistry in her blood."
Dot Newsmagazine

"Dahlia Season is an angry, amped up, visceral playground."
Oxford Town

"Fierce...so different and real."
La Gente de Aztlan (UCLA)

"[Desiree Garcia is] an endearingly weird young lesbian, and a delightful avatar for contemporary queer heroines in immigrant-nation America...Gurba’s debut collection is caustic, observant, and a comic dazzler."
Richard Labonte for Book Marks

"Freud would be twitching in his grave if he got his hands on Myriam Gurba's Dahlia Season...[Her] Chicano/a teenage characters are fleshed out, believable people, each of them imperfect and beautiful in some way. These gender-bending stories are gritty and edgy, packed with tender and humorous moments throughout."
tatiana de la tierra for REFORMA

"A tiny masterpiece of danger, psychic pain, and physical fulfillment."
Books to Watch Out For (referring to “Cruising”)

"Masterful...Anyone with an appreciation for honest, humorous, true-to-life writing will adore Dahlia Season."
Girlistic

"Myriam Gurba is a writer in love with the world. Her stories breathe with a rare innocence that only comes with a desire that is sure-footed and bravely aware of its place within the world-a revelation."
Bett Williams, author of Girl Walking Backwards and The Wrestling Party

"Scrupulously honest and suffused with suspense, Myriam Gurba’s tales are like Russian nesting dolls, each revealing a subculture within a subculture. Dahlia Season is the kind of book that forever changes the way you view the world."
Marc Acito, author of How I Paid for College

"Gurba rocks the Latina goth undercover-teenage-dyke world with a spirit of ferociousness, outrage, sultriness, pure punk rebellion, and joy."
Matthue Roth, author of Never Mind the Goldbergs

"Dahlia Season is a fantastic book filled with stories of sexy badass girls we rarely get to see in literature."
Ali Liebegott, author of The IHOP Papers

"Fantastic...[Gurba's] got a voice all her own. A must-read."
Zoe Trope, author of Please Don't Kill the Freshman

Other works to be announced!