Gallery Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, recently announced the winner of their BOOKS LIKE US First Novel Contest winner Elba Pérez, a writer from Río Grande, Puerto Rico. The contest was created to facilitate accessibility to underrepresented writers and celebrate the diversity of readers across the United States. As the nation strives for progress, Gallery Books and Simon & Schuster aim to help catalyze that change by amplifying voices that represent us, by publishing books like us. In future seasons, the Books Like Us First Novel Contest will rotate among other Simon & Schuster adult imprints. Pérez will be awarded the opportunity to enter into a $50,000 book deal with Gallery Books. Full rules for the BOOKS LIKE US First Novel Contest from Gallery Books can be reviewed at SimonAndSchuster.com/p/Gallery-First-Novel-Contest.
Read on to learn more about the winner of the contest. Elba Iris Pérez spent her early childhood in the company town of Woronoco, Massachusetts, and returned to Puerto Rico at the age of twelve. In 2002, when she visited Woronoco and found that the company town had been torn down, she was inspired to write about the Puerto Rican families who once lived there.
As a tenured professor at the University of Puerto Rico in Arecibo, she taught Western Culture and Theatre. She is the founder of a student theatre group at UPRA, Teatro Universitario de Histriones, and a community theatre group, Taller de Teatro del Tanamá. Elba, who was a mime in Teatro Ikaro (the Sir Icarus Circus) for four years, is the author of El Teatro Como Bandera, a history of street theatre in Puerto Rico, published in 2010 by Centro de Estudios Iberoamericanos, UPRA & Librería La Tertulia.
Elba has a BA in Philosophy from the University of Puerto Rico, an MA in Theatre from the University of Michigan, and a PhD in History from the University of Puerto Rico. Additionally, she studied creative writing at the UCLA Writers’ Extension Program. Elba has two adult children and lives in Houston with her husband. Congratulate Elba on Twitter! @elbaip.
GALLERY BOOKS, a division of Simon & Schuster, is an imprint dedicated to publishing a variety of must-read books on a wide array of topics. Launched in 2010, Gallery is designed to showcase established voices and to introduce emerging new ones—in both fiction and nonfiction. Gallery Books is the publisher of Five Presidents by Clint Hill, The Way I Heard It by Mike Rowe, Beautiful Things by Hunter Biden, The Girl with the Lower Back Tattoo by Amy Schumer, One by One and The Woman in Cabin 10 by Ruth Ware, The Problem with Everything by Meghan Daum, American Like Me by America Ferrera, The Last Black Unicorn by Tiffany Haddish, Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams, and The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones.
SIMON & SCHUSTER, a ViacomCBS Company, is a global leader in general interest publishing, dedicated to providing the best in fiction and nonfiction for readers of all ages, and in all printed, digital and audio formats. Its distinguished roster of authors includes many of the world’s most popular and widely recognized writers, and winners of the most prestigious literary honors and awards. It is home to numerous well-known imprints and divisions such as Simon & Schuster, Scribner, Atria Books, Gallery Books, Pocket Books, Adams Media, Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing and Simon & Schuster Audio and international companies in Australia, Canada, India and the United Kingdom, and proudly brings the works of its authors to readers in more than 200 countries and territories. For more information visit our website at www.simonandschuster.com.
