The Writer’s Center and The Inner Loop present a FREE virtual chat about the craft of nonfiction! We’re joined by Patricia Coral to discuss her celebrated memoir, Women Surrounded by Water. Patricia is in conversation with Chet’la Sebree, poet, essayist, and board member of both The Inner Loop and The Writer’s Center.
Women Surrounded by Water is The Inner Loop’s Author’s Corner spotlight. The Inner Loop cultivates and promotes the distinctive literary culture of Washington, DC. Author’s Corner supports local authors’ independently published books by spotlighting them in community programming and collaborations.
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We encourage you to order a copy of the book from your local, independent bookseller or online from Bookshop.org »
Patricia Coral is a bilingual Puerto Rican writer. She holds a BA in Hispanic Studies from the University of Puerto Rico, an MA in Spanish from the InterAmerican University of Puerto Rico, and an MFA in Creative Writing from American University, where she received the Myra Sklarew Award and where she was Editor-in-Chief of FOLIO. Patricia writes creative nonfiction, fiction, and poetry, but frequently her words find their home in-between. The former director of events for Politics and Prose Bookstore, she has contributed to numerous literary magazines and her work has been supported by the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities. Her memoir Women Surrounded by Water is her first book and it was longlisted for the 2024 National Book Critics Circle Award in Autobiography.
Chet’la Sebree is the author Field Study, winner of the 2020 James Laughlin Award from the Academy of American Poets, and Mistress. Her third poetry collection Blue Opening and debut essay collection turn (w)here: essays on (be)longing are forthcoming in 2025 and 2026, respectively.
About Women Surrounded by Water
Longlisted for the 2024 National Book Critics Circle Award in Autobiography
Growing up in Puerto Rico, Patricia Coral was surrounded by women who fought for their needs amid the demands of domesticity and who were dismissed and judged when they rejected any predetermined paths on an island that itself has never been free. At age twenty-five, she married her first love, a green-eyed musician whose internal storms drove Coral to slowly realize that the marriage must end. Faced with disillusionment—with her husband, with the patriarchal expectations that surrounded her like the Caribbean Sea, and with the limited options available to her—she leaves, only for Hurricane Maria to wrench her heart homeward.
Coral evokes the beauty, love, and language of her family and of Puerto Rico as well as the pain of yearning for more. Tastes, colors, and the dreamlike lushness of childhood memories infuse this mournful and propulsive memoir of personal and natural disasters—and the self-discovery made possible only when we choose what to leave behind.
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