Carmen is a Chicago based poet and storyteller. Her first work, Our Waters, is a journey through the awe that is generational grief, love, and loss. She explores themes of adoption, family, queerness, and being a brown person in a contextual world. You’ll find Carmen at the neighborhood bar scribbling in her various notebooks; an earthly-scented leather clad journal with raw edged paper and a composition notebook are her tools of choice. Described as a perpetually interested person, Carmen finds investment in the smallest interactions. Whether that be the daily visits to the corner store or the sweet pauses between looks with a stranger. Her expressions of grief matched with impressions of love are what she hopes to bring to the reader. “Keep writing. It’s good for the soul.”