My full name is Leonardo Ríos Márquez, but everyone calls me Leo, in either English or Spanish. When asked which one I prefer, I always say, “Whatever feels good is good.”

Believe it or not, I started writing fiction because Facebook was asking me to write an About Me section. I was eighteen years old. No one had ever asked me to write anything besides an essay. So I wrote little stories about me, embellished them with details about things that never happened, words that no one said. Pretty soon, during those late-night coffee-induced writing sessions (I was an English major in college) I was writing fiction in my essays and more fiction on Facebook. I loved it. 

Nowadays, I still get up every morning and dream about writing. Favorite books I’ve read recently include Dearborn by Ghassan Zeineddine, The Molino by Melani Martínez, Mama Said by Kristen Gentry, and If I Survive You by Jonathan Escoffery. I gained twenty pounds during the pandemic, but I’m on the yoga and steadily losing weight. Today, just for fun, I wrote this bio to tell you a little bit about me. This time, unlike those Facebook days, it’s all true.