In a 1993 interview with Manuel de Jesús Hernández and Michael Nymann, Erlinda Gonzales-Berry described her professional life: "I am first and foremost an academician. I write literary criticism, and I dabble in creative writing. I hope to change that order in the near future." Her early creative output is limited--she published a few poems in 1975 and 1984 and excerpts from a promising novel, "Rosebud," which explores the lives of five New Mexican sisters living on a ranch, in 1988. The 1991 publication of Paletitas de guayaba (Guava Popsicles), written after her return from taking students on a study trip to Mexico in 1980-1981, firmly established Gonzales-Berry as an important New Mexican writer.

Erlinda Viola Gonzales-Berry was born on 23 August 1942 in Roy, New Mexico, to Carlota and Canuto Gonzales. Her mother was a rural schoolteacher, her father a rancher. She completed a B.S. in education (1964), an M...