SUNY Empire’s Director of Spanish Language Programs is Featured Panelist at International Multilingual Creative Writing Conference 2024

(MANHATTAN, NY — NOVEMBER 22, 2024) On Thursday, Nov 14, the CUNY International Multilingual Creative Writing Conference (IMCWC) hosted Silvia Mejía, Empire State University’s director of Spanish Language Programs, as one of their 2024 panelists. Mejía is an Ecuadorian nonfiction writer, professor of Spanish, and former journalist spanning Ecuador, France, and the United States. Her manuscript-in-progress, “Violencias, grandes y pequeñas” (which translates to: “Violences Big and Small”), is a collection of autobiographical stories. It examines sociopolitical hardship in 1980s Ecuador through childhood scenes underscored by violence, resilience, and revelation.  

The IMCWC, hosted by City University of New York (CUNY), invites creative writers from across the globe to uplift diverse experiences across cultures and promote intercultural exchanges in the global literary community. Each year, qualified panelists are selected based on literary recognition such as existing and upcoming publications or accomplishments in their areas of focus. The cohort of writers are grouped thematically, providing varying perspectives on a shared topic. The panel Mejía formed part of was titled “The Home and the World.” 

“Conferences like this are important because they showcase writers coming from different literary cultures and languages, who are writing in those languages while living in the U.S. This conference encompasses literary expressions in English as well as many other languages, which reflects the reality of living and writing in the U.S.,” Mejía commented. 

Mejía’s reading of “Cambio de piel” (in English, “Turn of Skin”), one of the essays in her collection, was complemented by two co-panelists: Peruvian writer and poet Rocío Uchofen, and Puerto Rican poet Elidio La Torre Lagares, both of whom have published work and been awarded literary recognitions. Like her peers, Mejía also holds literary accolades, including her recently published literary essay “Salamandra” (Literal Magazine, June 2023), and nonfiction story, “Vacaciones de sexto grado” (Antología Volumen III, FILNYC, 2023). Prior to becoming the Director of Spanish Language Programs at SUNY Empire, she was a professor of Spanish, Latin American Literature, and Film at The College of Saint Rose.  

She shares, “I’ve been a professor for over two decades, and I’ve always found in this profession a way to nourish my creative impulse to write. My current role as director of Spanish Language Programs at SUNY Empire yields yet another intersection between my professional and personal literary selves: as someone who writes in Spanish in the U.S., I am proud to form part of an institution expanding access to higher education through the development of academic programs taught completely in Spanish.” 

Mejía’s written work houses large sociopolitical questions in the intimate, domestic spaces in which she first encountered them—the implications of which run deeply through her personal life and her nation’s history. Through examinations of her own lived experience, she fleshes out the parallels between “The Home and the World” in hopes that her openness and vulnerability will help foster a culture of authentic human connection. While she continues readying “Violencias, grandes y pequeñas” for publication, Mejía is sure to bring the same sincerity and care to her work on Spanish Language Programs at Empire State University.