Old Scratch Press Short Form and Poetry Collective is pleased to announce that Beatriz Fernandez has recently become our newest member.  “I am thrilled and honored, “she says, “to join an online community of fellow writers from around the globe who support each other’s work, provide feedback and share our various skills and strengths.”

Although she didn’t try to get published until she was in her late forties, Beatriz has been writing all her life. 

“I write in both form and free verse, both mainstream and genre, and have recently begun to write flash and short fiction. In poetry, I favor historical persona poems written in the voices of women, whether historical, mythological, or fictional figures. I also write speculative poetry and short fiction. I try to include my love of robots, androids, or time travel in most of my stories.” 

Over the past ten years, Beatriz Fernandez’s work has been nominated for the Pushcart prize four times, and has been published in anthologies and journals as various as Label Me Latina/o, Prime Number Magazine, Strange Horizons, and Whale Road Review.  She’s authored three poetry chapbooks: the most recent, Simultaneous States, (Bainbridge Island Press, 2025) included some poetry set in Puerto Rico and some speculative poems.  Her eco-science fiction flash fiction piece, “Flow Time” was published this summer in a special Florida themed anthology by Gaslamp Pulp, a division of Nat 1 Publishing.  That publisher also just accepted her Puerto Rican Frog Prince adaptation titled “The Coquí Captain” for a children’s anthology of reimagined fairy tales.

Beatriz grew up in Philadelphia, Spain, and mostly Puerto Rico and then came to Florida to attend college.  During her junior year she established her Florida residency, met her husband, and began working in libraries.  “I fell in love with all three,” she says, “and subsequently found no reason to leave any of them!”

Describing herself as a late bloomer in both her library and writing careers; she became a professional librarian in her mid 30s.  On the way, she obtained an M.A. in English literature but found herself to be too much of a generalist to focus on a dissertation topic. 

“During this time,” she says, “I seemed to be under the impression I was a budding novelist while the reality was that I was writing more poetry than anything else.  My lightbulb moment came when I won a Writer’s Digest poetry contest that I entered on the very last day.  That stroke of luck seemed to finally put me on the right road and actively seeking to improve my poetry style.  I embarked on a long-distance phone tutorial with poet Andrea Hollander, who is a brilliant teacher and mentor, for several years; she helped me find my true voice. “

“Many writing classes, confabs and workshops later,” she says, “I’ve published almost every poem I’ve ever written! Now I feel I have come full circle—after starting out my writing career with long-distance tutorials, I’ve joined an online community of fellow writers.”

To learn more about Beatriz and to hear her radio interview on “Here and Now,” you can visit her website here

Thank you for reading this post and visiting the Old Scratch Press Blog. Next Saturday October 25th at 5:00 p.m., three members of the Old Scratch Press Team are participating in a special online reading from their newly published books. FREE. Read more about it here. And follow us on Facebook.