About

I’m a fiction writer whose work has appeared in Burnt Pine Magazine, Mad Scientist Journal, Rascal Journal, Eastern Iowa Review,  Saint Katherine Review, and elsewhere.

I was born in the Inland Empire and spent my childhood there and in San Luis Potosí, Illinois, and Texas. I hold an MDiv from Beeson Divinity School in Birmingham, Alabama.

Adulthood took me to Alabama, Wisconsin, New Jersey, and then back to Southern California. I now live with my husband and son in Orange County.

Aside from writing, my passions include reading Jorge Luis Borges, learning about the world, listening to Mercedes Sosa, Torreblanca, and Sam Cooke, eating mazapánes de cacahuate, and being silly with my family.

My unpublished middle-grade fantasy novel Silent Simon earned a Certificate of Merit in the 2017 Deep River Books Writer’s Contest, and my short story “The Shell” earned the Editor’s Choice Award from Relief (Spring 2018). Relief Fiction Editor Aaron Housholder wrote: 

“My mind keeps returning, though, to Laura Arciniega’s ‘The Shell’ for the singular irregularity of its tone and texture, and specifically for its playful consideration of the passage of time. And here’s my favorite part: the narrative never explains itself. It moves forward, driven by whimsical narration and lovely language and lasting imagery, and asks you to keep up as you can and not worry about it. This story does for me what the best stories do: it grabs me early, sets its own rules, and proceeds on the trajectory it sets for itself, assuming I’ll come along. The story expects me to do some work as I read and then makes that work most rewarding. Every story in this issue is a masterpiece, in my view, but ‘The Shell’ haunts me for the enchanting control it exerts on the reader.”

You can find me on Twitter @LauraAArciniega.

Gregg Park, Bayonne, NJ