Back to the Woods

Cruz is the author of seven previous collections of poems: Hotel Oblivion (Four Way Books, 2022), Guidebooks for the Dead (Four Way Books, 2020), Dregs (Four Way Books, 2018), How the End Begins (Four Way Books, 2016), Wunderkammer (Four Way Books, 2014), The Glimmering Room (Four Way Books, 2012) and Ruin (Alice James Books, 2006). Disquieting: Essays on Silence, a collection of critical essays exploring the concept of silence, was published by Book*hug in the spring of 2019. The Melancholia of Class, an exploration of melancholia and the working class, was published by Repeater Books in July of 2021. Steady Diet of Nothing (Four Way Books, 2023), is Cruz's debut novel.

Cruz earned a BA in English Literature at Mills College, an MFA in poetry at Sarah Lawrence College, an MFA in Art Writing from the School of Visual Arts, and an MA in German Language and Literature from Rutgers University. She is the recipient of fellowships from Yaddo, the MacDowell Colony and a Hodder Fellowship from Princeton University. Her collection, Hotel Oblivion, was a finalist for the Kingsley Tufts Award and winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award. She is currently pursuing a PhD at the European Graduate School where her research focuses on Hegel and madness.