User:Kayleydelong/sandbox

Early Life
Trujillo was born in New Mexico, and lived there for several years before moving to Northern California. There, her grandmother ran a grocery store in the town of Las Vegas where Trujillo spent many days as a child playing. Trujillo would later use these early memories as inspiration for her works such as Faith and Fat Chances and Dogtown which both carry messages about class struggles and the impacts of gentrification. Trujillo's grandmother's store was eventually claimed as eminent domain and paved over to make way for a highway, which meant the loss of income she used to support her seven children.

Trujillo went on to study human development at the University of California, Davis. It wasn't until she had moved on to graduate school at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, where her writing became an integral part of her time. She eventually moved Berkeley, California, after accomplishing her PhD in Education Psychology, but still prioritizes annual visits to New Mexico; in an interview about her book Faith and Fat Chances, Trujillo observed, “I feel very connected to the land, to the people and the spirit of the country...It’s always been a part of my life.

Editorial Work
In 1991, Trujillo embarked on editing for Chicana Lesbians: The Girls Our Mothers Warned Us About, an anthology which collected written works from other Chicana Lesbian writers. Her inspiration for editing Chicana Lesbians came from the work of other ahtologies; Trujillo noted that reading Juanita Ramos's Compañeras: Latina Lesbians motivated her to expand upon the knowledge of Chicana Lesbian experiences. Trujillo, as she put it, "wanted to see more about the intricacies and specifics of lesbianism and our culture," incorporating writings which discussed issues such as racism and familial rejection of identity. Chicana Lesbians would later be awarded with the Lambda Literary Award for Best Lesbian Anthology.

Awards

 * Lambda Literary Award for Best Lesbian Anthology for Chicana Lesbians: The Girls Our Mothers Warned Us About (1991, won - editor)
 * PEN Bellwether Prize for Faith and Fat Chances (2012 - Finalist)