Born and raised in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, Juana Moriel-Payne is a novelist and a historian. Her first novel, Trigueña, is a historical narrative that won the Premio Publicaciones 2012. It was published by Instituto Chihuahuense de la Cultura (ICHICULT) in 2013, and in 2014 it received the Southwest Book Awards from the Border Regional Library Association (BRLA). La caza del venado was a finalist novel in the 2015 Contacto Latino literary contest, and was published by Pukiyari Editors in 2016. Moriel-Payne teaches Latin American Studies and Creative Writing at Mount Saint Mary’s University, Los Angeles.