This is the inaugural piece in 80 Hours’s new series on Iowa’s International Writing Program fall residents. IWP brings writers from around the world to Iowa City for classes, workshops, readings, and literary tours.

By Cassandra Santiago
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At age 5, Karen Villeda couldn’t read. Facing the possibility of her daughter repeating kindergarten, her mother made it her mission to get Villeda to advance to first grade. She had no idea the literary hunger it would spark. Today, Villeda, 30, is a published poet, translator, and fiction writer. 

Villeda grew up in a small Mexican town, where she spent time on the lap of her grandmother reading Shakespeare, Oscar Wilde, and Edgar Allan Poe. Many would deem this material too complex for a child of 7 or 8 years old, but Villeda was fascinated. She read these books with her grandmother, occasionally pulling out a huge dictionary for clarity, a dictionary she now keeps in her home.

“My grandmother is, even though she’s dead now, the most important person in my life,” Villeda said.

With her literary passion ablaze, Villeda began her writing career at a young age. She wrote her first “serious” story at 14. By 17, she published her first poem in her hometown’s newspaper. At 18, Villeda went to college in Mexico City, where she studied international affairs before taking a job at Mexico’s Ministry of Health. After years at her job, Villeda craved ample time for writing. She committed completely to her literary career two years ago. Her time at the Ministry of Health further developed her love of history, which can particularly be seen in her latest book of narrative poetry, Dodo, written in her favorite form of expression.

“In Dodo, I think I [found] an equilibrium between my voice, my experiences, and my readings to make a book that is so me, very me, that is so personal, but at the same time a piece of poetry that is universal,” Villeda said. “That really means a lot to me.”

Karen Villeda, a writer from the University of Iowa International Writer’s Program talks about writers block and how she deals with the obstacle. (Audio compiled by Cassandra Santiago & edited by Lily Abromeit)

Inspiration for the book came from Villeda’s longtime interest in the dodo bird. During a trip to Amsterdam in 2011, the writer visited a center of dodo studies. What started out as curiosity turned into a novel about colonization, violence, and greed told through the perspective of the extinction of the dodo at the hands of humans.

“I was deeply interested in writing about violence but from another country that wasn’t Mexico,” Villeda said. “In Mexico we have … a lot of books talking about violence, but I was thinking also that violence is universal.”

Since its release in 2013, Dodo won the 2013 Elías Nandino National Award for Youth Poetry.

Her advice for young, aspiring writers: “For every one word that you write, you should read two, and for every two words you write, you should read four.”