John Manuel Arias is a gay, Costa Rican and Uruguayan writer back in Washington, DC after many years. He is a Canto Mundo fellow & alumnus of the Tin House Summer Writers Workshop. His fiction has found homes in Joyland Magazine, Akashic Books, Barren Magazine and the Acentos Review, with work forthcoming in F(r)iction. His poetry has appeared in several literary magazines, including PANK, Platypus Press, Sixth Finch, the Journal, and Assaracus: A Journal of Gay Poetry, with poems forthcoming in The Offing. He has been nominated for both the Pushcart Prize and the Best of the Net three times. Before DC, he lived in Costa Rica with his grandmother and four ghosts.