writing
Content marketing
I turned my academic training in research and writing into a career as a content marketing specialist. I write persuasive blogs meant to offer the reader information and convert them into customers. By optimizing content for search engines (SEO) and operationalizing keywords, I create content that gets read. A focus on the target audience along with an upbeat tone and simple structure encourages engagement.
Thoroughly researched internal and external link-building strategies give authority to the material, and meta descriptions pull in the audience. Formatting that adheres to an already developed style sheet helps the reader focus on content, so you sell your products and your brand identity is maintained.​
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​Read a selection of my content marketing work in my writing portfolio.​
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Projects
I have written over 65 blogs of about 2,000 words each on Hispanic/
Latino culture and history, and the Spanish language for a language learning company. Topics include everything from Mexican holidays to languages in Peru to adjectives in Spanish.
Academic writing
My academic writing and research has focused on early modern convent writers and artists in Spain and Spanish America. I wrote my master’s thesis, “Corpus to Corpus: Text and Interior Bodily Space in Two Visions by Hipólita de Jesús,” using queer theory to analyze two mystical visions by this multilingual woman writer who lived from 1551 to 1624 and published over 20 works, some of which were banned by the Inquisition. For this project, I did archival research of handwritten manuscripts and early print books in Oaxaca, Mexico, and Barcelona, Spain, for which I won two grants from Indiana University.
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I researched and wrote a book chapter in Spanish called
“ ‘Convento espiritual’ de Hipólita de Jesús: un texto simbólico, un espacio dinámico” which appeared in the book Reforma católica y disidencia conversa: Diego Pérez de Valdivia y sor Hipólita de Jesús y Rocabertí en Barcelona (1578-1624), published in 2020 by Editorial Academia del Hispanismo. I argue that Hipólita imbues the architecture and people around her with literary symbolism at the same time she subverts traditional religious tropes and elevates the status of the convent nuns. The chapter includes the first annotated transcription of the original work, “Convento espiritual.”
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I have also researched and presented at academic conferences about an unusual poetic collage by a Peruvian saint, Rosa of Lima (1586-1617), called Mercedes del alma/Escalera espiritual. I won a Tinker Grant to go to Lima in 2017 to research this piece and other letters written by Rosa. I am currently working on an academic article where I examine material, textual, and visual aspects of the collage and argue that it is probably a collective work.
Hipólita de Jesús, Libro primero, Valencia, 1679.
