Elaine Castillo's most recent book is How to Read Now (Viking, 2022), about the politics and ethics of our reading culture. Her widely acclaimed debut novel, America Is Not the Heart (Viking, 2018), was a finalist for the Elle Big Book Award, the Center for Fiction Prize, and the Aspen Words Literary Prize and was named a best book of the year by NPR, The Boston Globe, The San Francisco Chronicle, Kirkus Reviews, the New York Public Library, and many others. Her writing has appeared in Freeman’s, The Rumpus, Lit Hub, Taste Magazine, Electric Literature, and elsewhere. Her short film, A Mukkbang, was commissioned by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art’s Open Space. She is a VONA Foundation Fellow, and was a three-time recipient of the Roselyn Schneider Eisner Prize for prose while at UC Berkeley. She has also been nominated for the Pat Kavanagh Award, a Pushcart Prize, and a Gatewood Prize.
When asked about the ways in which the personal is political in America Is Not The Heart, she responded, “When it comes to political art as genre and aesthetic, I'm always conscious of the narrow, gendered assumption that "serious" political content is about war, empire, and history. There is no lack of war or colonial history in the book. But it's equally important to me that a young, queer, Bay Area Pinay's relationship to makeup artistry, or a former NPA insurgent's feelings about romance manga, could also bear significant political resonance—which is to say, could also be as alive to our civic selves as to our private souls.”
Born, raised, and currently living in the Bay Area, she attended UC Berkeley. In 2009, Castillo moved to London and later received a MA in Creative & Life Writing from Goldsmiths, University of London.
