Irene Vilar (born c. 1969) is a Puerto Rican American

editor Editing is the process of selecting and preparing written, photographic, visual, audible, or cinematic material used by a person or an entity to convey a message or information. The editing process can involve correction, condensation, orga ...

literary agent A literary agent is an agent who represents writers and their written works to publishers, theatrical producers, film producers, and film studios, and assists in sale and deal negotiation. Literary agents most often represent novelists, screenwrit ...

, environmental advocate, and author of several books dealing with national and generational trauma and women's reproductive rights.

Biography

Born in

Arecibo, Puerto Rico Arecibo (; ) is a city and municipality on the northern coast of Puerto Rico, on the shores of the Atlantic Ocean, located north of Utuado and Ciales; east of Hatillo; and west of Barceloneta and Florida. It is about west of San Juan, the ...

in 1969, Vilar is the granddaughter of Puerto Rican nationalist Lolita Lebrón, who participated in an assault on the United States House of Representatives in 1954.''Memoir of a former abortion addict''
from the '' Los Angeles Times'' 13 October 2009 After her mother's suicide in 1977, she attended boarding school in New Hampshire at age 15 before enrolling at

Syracuse University Syracuse University (informally 'Cuse or SU) is a Private university, private research university in Syracuse, New York. Established in 1870 with roots in the Methodist Episcopal Church, the university has been nonsectarian since 1920. Locate ...

where she married her literature professor, Pedro Cuperman.''Death Threats, Hate Mail for 'Abortion Addict' Author''
from '' ABC News'' 14 October 2009 Her work '' The Ladies' Gallery: A Memoir of Family Secrets'' (originally published in 1996) was a ''Philadelphia Inquirer'' and ''Detroit Free Press'' notable book of the year, a finalist for the Mind Book of the Year Award and the Latino Book Award. Her memoir, ''Impossible Motherhood: Testimony of an Abortion Addict'' (published in 2009), revealed that the author had 15 abortions in 17 years. Vilar received death threats after its publication. It won the 2010 IPPY Gold Medal for Best Memoir/Autobiography and the 12th Latino Book 2nd Place Award for Best Women’s Issues. She founded her own literary agency, Vilar Creative Agency, and serves as a co-agent in the United States for Ray-Gude Mertin Literary Agency, an agency specializing in Spanish, Latin American, and Portuguese authors, which represented writers as 1998 Nobel Prize laureate Jose Saramago. In 2007, Vilar founded the Colorado and Puerto Rico based non-profit Americas for Conservation + the Arts and is its current executive director. In 2010, Vilar was awarded a

Guggenheim fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...

for her nonfiction writing. Also that year, she gave the keynote at the 2010 National Convention of State Senators and Legislators Hispanic Caucus on Latino Mental Health, “Severe Depressive Disorder: Overcoming Adversity and Stigma” where she talks about the trauma she experienced growing up and in her marriage. She serves on the advisory council of the Colorado Office of Outdoor Recreation Industry and the Green Leadership Trust. After Hurricane Maria in 2017, Vilar founded the Resilience Fund through her non-profit to help farmers restore their farms.

Works

* *

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Vilar, Irene 1969 births Living people People from Arecibo, Puerto Rico Puerto Rican self-help writers Puerto Rican women writers American memoirists American women memoirists Syracuse University alumni