ABOUT ME
Lorena Hernández Leonard is a Latina writer, storyteller, and filmmaker born in Colombia whose work has been recognized in The Best American Essays Notable list, was a finalist for the PEN America Emerging Writer Fellowship and the CRAFT Creative Nonfiction Award. Her writing has been published in Corporeal KHÔRA, NPR’s Cognoscenti, Tasteful Rude, Pathfinders Collective, and elsewhere. She has received support for her memoir, Salsipuedes: Leave if You Can, about growing up during the Colombian drug war and her forced immigration to the U.S. as a Pauline Scheer fellow at GrubStreet Creative Writing Center, and by the Mass Cultural Council, Tin House, Juniper Writing Institute at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and others.
Lorena has appeared on WORLD Channel and PBS’s nationally televised program Stories from the Stage and performs for Suitcase Stories, a program featuring immigrant stories produced by Stellar Story Company and in partnership with the International Institute of New England. She is co-producer of the award-winning animated short film Demi’s Panic which has screened at film festivals around the world and was long-listed for the 94th OSCARS.
She holds an MA from Emerson College and a BA from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. She resides in the Boston area with her family and dog.
ABOUT “Salsipuedes: Leave If You Can”
I grew up in Medellín, Colombia in the 1980s when Time Magazine dubbed it “the most dangerous city in the world.” As a child, I ran away from street shootings, witnessed a murder, and experienced a bomb explosion––an assassination attempt against the world’s most infamous narco kingpin.
When I was twelve, I fled with my parents and sisters to the U.S., leaving behind the violence but also the ethereal cloud forest of the Andes, the aroma of anise that clung in the air, and a family I loved. I struggled assimilating to the frigidity of New England and battled with Post-traumatic Stress Disorder. With no sense of place, I felt I didn’t belong in either country. But having seen my mother’s perseverance, I was determined to not be defined by my past and learned to reclaim both worlds.
“Salsipuedes: Leave If You Can” challenges the stereotypes of the drug war, highlights the impact of this terrible history on everyday Colombians, and explores the effect of displacement where, as immigrants, we are indescribably changed––stuck in the middle between the memories of a motherland that fade into the past and a present limbo of the new land we struggle to belong to.
