ABOUT
Ursula Villarreal-Moura is the author of Math for the Self-Crippling (2022), selected by Zinzi Clemmons as the Gold Line Press fiction contest winner, and Like Happiness (Celadon Books, 2024), named a Best Book of 2024 by NPR, San Francisco Chronicle, ELLE, and Them. A graduate of Middlebury College, she received her MFA from Sarah Lawrence College and was a VONA/Voices fellow. Her stories, essays, and reviews have appeared in numerous magazines including Tin House, Catapult, Prairie Schooner, Midnight Breakfast,Washington Square, Story, Bennington Review, Wigleaf Top 50, and Gulf Coast. She contributed to Forward: 21st Century Flash Fiction, a flash anthology by writers of color, and in 2012, she won the CutBank Big Fish Flash Fiction/Prose Poetry Contest. Her writing has been nominated for Best of the Net, Best Small Fictions, a Pushcart Prize, and longlisted for Best American Short Stories 2015.
Photo by Levi Travieso
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Fiction
(Print)
Bennington Review: Issue 5
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"Ojo"
Fifth Wednesday Journal: Issue 23
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Paper Darts, Vol. 8
"Fatima, midstride, circa 1988"
Jelly Bucket: Issue 7
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"Gestalt, Etc."
Folio: Volume 33
"Masterpieces", "Corrupt Computer", "Misinterpretations"
The Normal School: Volume 9, Issue 2
Washington Square Review: Issue 35
New South: Volume 7,Issue 2
"Rubric for Your New England College Experience, 1998"
NANO Fiction: Volume 7, Issue 2
"Blood Paisleys, 1990" and "Tabloid Totems"
The Emerson Review: Volume 42
"Rosicrucian Triptych"
CutBank: Issue 78
Fiction
(Online)
Bennington Review
Cosmonauts Avenue
WhiskeyPaper
"Through Sophia Loren Glasses"
Wigleaf
Wigleaf
Hobart
Nashville Review
Columbia Journal
"Last Chapter on Hotel Stationery"
The Butter
Literary Orphans
matchbook
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"Blood Paisleys, 1990" & "Rubric for Your New England College Experience, 1998"
TAYO
The Atticus Review
DOGZPLOT
"Ambulances Are Coming for You"
tNYPress
The Weekly Rumpus
DOGZPLOT
Lunch Ticket
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Vol. 1 Brooklyn
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Corium
The Eckleburg Review
NAP
Black Heart Magazine
CutBank
Eunoia Review
Nonfiction
"Of Spanish and My Grandmother"
Catapult
"Two Scenarios Involving Manuel G. Villarreal"
Tin House
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"José Villarreal..." and "Sulema Villarreal..."
Midnight Breakfast, Issue 16
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Passages North, Issue 40
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Los Angeles Review
"Muir Beach"
Folio: Volume 32, 2017
"Exhibits of Camille and Ursula 2004-2015"
LUMINA
Big Muddy
"Requiem for Self-Respect"
Folio: Volume 31, 2016
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"Fox Coats and Dictionaries: A History of My Flash Education"
SmokeLong Quarterly
"Le Divorce: Living (and Not Living) with Diane Johnson"
Bennington Review
Sundog Lit
"Brief History of Deleted Character"
The Austin Review
The Eckleburg Review
Interviews
&
Reviews
Anthologies
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Forward: 21st Century Flash Fiction
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Extinguished and Extinct: An Anthology of Things That No Longer Exist
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Interviews
5Q4Q with Quiddity
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Book Reviews
13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl
by Mona Awad
My Salinger Year
by Joanna Rakoff
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High Rise Stories
by Audrey Petty
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DISTINCTIONS
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Pushcart Prize nomination:
"Mucci"
Bennington Review
Pushcart Prize nomination:
"Brief History of a Deleted Character"
The Austin Review
Winner of the CutBank 2012 Big Fish Flash Fiction/Prose Poetry Contest
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Fiction featured in Longform Fiction
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Fiction featured in Longreads: 10 Outstanding Stories to Read in 2019
Fiction featured in Longreads: In Your Dreams: A Reading List
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Wigleaf Top 50:
Literary Orphans
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Best of the Net nomination:
WhiskeyPaper
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Best Small Fictions 2018 nomination:
"Through Sophia Loren Glasses"
Wigleaf
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Finalist for Split Lip's 2018 Turnbuckle Chapbook Contest
"Math for the Self-Crippling"
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Semi-finalist in Rose Metal Press' Short Short Chapbook Contest:
"Abacus of Self-Improvement"
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Best American Short Stories 2015 (longlisted):
"Idiots in Spain"
New South
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