Ruben Reyes Jr. is the son of two Salvadoran immigrants and a graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop and Harvard College. As a fiction writer, he explores how science fiction can help readers make sense of immigrants' lives, which are already dystopian, as well as issues of memory, history, and nation-building. His debut short story collection, There is a Rio Grande in Heaven, will be published by Mariner Books in 2024. The satirical and surreal stories interrogate technology, capitalism, and xenophobia through questions of Central American identity and our understanding of home. As a fellow, he is working on his first novel, which traces the lives of two Salvadoran families in alternate timelines of the Salvadoran Civil War. His writing has appeared in The Boston Globe, The Washington Post, Lightspeed Magazine, and other publications. Originally from Southern California, he now lives in Brooklyn.