Cecilia Pinto
Fiction
Chicago, IL
Cecilia Pinto is a graduate of Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois, where she received the Davenport Poetry prize, judged by poet Robert Bly. She received her MFA in Writing from the School of the Art Institute in Chicago, where she studied with Rosellen Brown, Beth Nugent, Janet Desaulniers, and David Robbins.
Imagine the Dog, her novella, received the 2020 Clay Reynolds Novella prize and was published by Texas Review Press.
Her writing has appeared in a variety of publications, including Esquire, Fence, Rhino, and Triquarterly. Additionally, she has a poetry chapbook, entitled A Small Woman, with Dancing Girl Press.
Her work appears in a number of anthologies, including American Gun, from DePaul University Press, 2020, and Mentor and Muse: Essays from Poets to Poets, Southern Illinois University Press, 2010. (w/ collaborator Alice George) and The Overturning, from Hypertext.
In addition to publication, she has received various acknowledgements of her efforts, including winning Esquire Magazine’s short fiction contest in 2000 and receiving an honorable mention in the Best American Essays series in 2014 for her essay, ‘Cups’ first published in the New Ohio Review.
Pinto has received a Pushcart prize nomination, a grant from the City of Chicago to work on a now-completed middle-grade novel, a nomination for an Illinois Arts Council award, and recognition as one of the Chicago Guild Literary Complex’s ‘25 Writers to Watch.’
Pinto has been a teaching artist in the city of Chicago for more than twenty years and is honored to work with and learn from the young people of her city.