Events › Meet the Author: Cynthia Gómez - Muñeca

Local author Cynthia Gómez describes her work as "feminist, anti-capitalist, queer, Latine horror with dark fantasy streaks in her hair." Her debut story collection The Nightmare Box and Other Stories (2024) is a "a magic-soaked love letter to Oakland, brimming with feminist rage." She returns in 2026 with her debut novel, Muñeca, a Gothic horror story about a "queer, Latine, working class witch who sets out to rescue a bespelled heiress and loses control of her powers and her heart in the process." It takes place in late 1960s Oakland, at the height of the Chicano and Black Power movements here, and it is certain to be in the running for best horror novel of the year.

Gómez will be in conversation with our OPL librarian about the politics of her writing, her relationship to Oakland, and what it means to write queer, Latine characters at a time when those identities are increasingly under attack politically.

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