In Conversation: On Waterproof: Evidence of a Miami Worth Remembering

Michael Ivory Jr. is a writer of essays and fiction born in Miami Lakes but raised all over Miami. He is currently pursuing an MFA at North Carolina State University, where he is working on a novel-length speculative fiction project set in Miami after climate disaster has torn the city in two. His fiction concerns the everyday magic of survival, and while at times sobering, seeks to also inspire beauty and a love of fun. His fiction is forthcoming, and he has essays featured in Duke Magazine and the Elie Wiesel Essay Contest in Ethics. He also has a short audio-play featured in the Artist Soapbox podcast.

Monica Uszerowicz is a writer and photographer born in Brooklyn, New York,  to an Ashkenazi-Afro-Puerto Rican family. Her written work has been featured in Artforum, Art in America, The Believer, Bomb, the Los Angeles Review of Books, the New York Review of Books, and elsewhere, and her photographs have been exhibited globally. She is currently a Creative Capital Art Writers grantee. She lives in and loves Miami.

Horacio Sierra, Ph.D., is a writer, educator, and the author of Sanctified Subversives: Nuns in Early Modern English and Spanish Literature and the collection New Readings of the Merchant of Venice. His journalism has been published in The Washington Post, The Baltimore Sun, the Hartford Courant, Hispanic magazine, and the Miami Herald. His teaching and research interests include Renaissance literature and culture, Shakespeare, religious discourse, gender, sexuality, popular culture, journalism, new media, and Hispanic literature and culture. Sierra is also a contributor to Waterproof: Evidence of a Miami Worth Remembering (Jai Alai Books) – a collection of microelegies to Miami places and a sample of the responses of Miamians to the question “What will you miss when Miami is gone?” Book Two of The Miami Trilogy by the O, Miami Poetry Festival, the 197 pieces therein are the answers from 165 writers and artists, ranging from high schoolers to retirees and hailing from all corners of Miami-Dade County.

Christell Victoria Roach is a writer born and raised in Miami. She is an MFA candidate at the University of Miami studying poetry. She graduated from Emory University’s Class of 2019 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in creative writing and African American studies. She writes the Blues of the Southern Tropics. Roach places her poetry in conversation with Black artists and scholars when she describes her writing as “critically fabulist wake-work rooted in the demonic,” after Saidiya Hartman, Christina Sharpe, and Katherine McKittrick, respectively. She is a poet and playwright, but sees research as comprehensive storytelling. Roach’s recent work has been published by the Academy of American Poets, Poetry Magazine, Obsidian: Literature & Arts in the African Diaspora, Scalawag Magazine, The Miami Rail, and SWIMM Every Day. She is currently working on her first book of poetry, Bluesing.

Arsimmer McCoy, is a poet, actor, educator, and spoken-word performer. Born in Richmond Heights, Florida, and now a Miami Gardens resident, she is a contributor to Waterproof: Evidence of a Miami Worth Remembering (Jai Alai Books) – a collection of microelegies to Miami places and a sample of the responses of Miamians to the question “What will you miss when Miami is gone?” Book Two of The Miami Trilogy by the O, Miami Poetry Festival, the 197 pieces therein are the answers from 165 writers and artists, ranging from high schoolers to retirees and hailing from all corners of Miami-Dade County.

Alejandro Nodarse holds an MFA from the University of Miami and is an alum and former staff member of the VONA Writers Conference. He has been the fiction artist in residence at the Deering Estate in Miami, a finalist for the 2019 CINTAS Foundation fellowship, a 2020 Desert Nights, Rising Stars fellow, an honorable mention in the 2020 Miami Book Fair Emerging Writer Fellowship, and a runner-up for the Key West Literary Seminar Emerging Writer Award in 2021. His work has been published by The Acentos Review, Burrow Press, Jai-Alai Magazine and other publications. A former apprentice arborist and independent bookseller, he now teaches writing at the University of Nebraska.

Mario Alejandro Ariza is a journalist and poet who also covers federal courts for the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. His poetry, journalism, and nonfiction writing can be found in places like BOAAT Press, The Atlantic, and The Believer. Ariza edited and wrote the introduction for Waterproof: Evidence of a Miami Worth Remembering (Jai Alai Books) – a collection of microelegies to Miami places and a sample of the responses of Miamians to the question “What will you miss when Miami is gone?” – Book Two of The Miami Trilogy by the O, Miami Poetry Festival. The 197 pieces therein are the answers from 165 writers and artists, ranging from high schoolers to retirees and hailing from all corners of Miami-Dade County.