Future Tense Books
2024
ISBN 978-1-892061-99-7
84 pages, 4.25 x 7
Cover art by Kevin Sampsell
AN INCOMPLETE CATALOG OF DISAPPEARANCE
Missing: The Statue of Liberty. A lost Raphael self-portrait last seen with a military unit named Hellfish. A manuscript by the artist Sophie Calle. Your local scorpion population. An astronaut-parent. A housekeeper. A leg. Unfiled files. D.B. Cooper. That volcano erupting behind you. The present tense…
These are just a handful of the many disappearances Diana Oropeza explores in her startling debut book, An Incomplete Catalog of Disappearance, a hybrid work of flash fiction and creative nonfiction that haunts at every turn. Many voices, named and unnamed, document the unresolved nature of disappearance and unending grief that follows in its wake. As you read, the book itself disappears in your hands.
“A monarch of the short form, Diana Oropeza has achieved the seemingly impossible: she has pulled a Jorge Luis Borges rabbit from a lexical hat. Rooted and anchored in research and fictive veracity, she intentionally confiscates academic surrealism with wit and pith. With each piece, Oropeza, much like Dorothy Dietrich catching a narrative bullet with her mouth, bends time and collapses stars, surprising the reader with every twist and turn of phrase, and bestowing phantom limbs to their chiropteran and lagomorph thoughts. These mesmerizing stories in An Incomplete Catalog of Disappearance hold people, (meta)things, and nonexistent beings hostage with their concise economy, whimsical non-linearity, and highly imaginative, nomadic narratives. Her work is the most electrifying text I have read in such a long time.” – Vi Khi Nao, author of The Italy Letters
“Diana Oropeza’s An Incomplete Catalog of Disappearance is a marvel. Suspend your logic, allow yourself to be pulled into the labyrinth, trust “a certain unfocusing of the eyes,” and you’ll be fascinated by what, gently and quietly, appears through the blur. I already can’t wait for Diana’s future books.” – Poupeh Missaghi, author of Sound Museum
Goldfish Books
2020
Self-published
38 pages, 5.5 x 8
Cover art by Blaed Rogers
ORIGIN STORY
A poetry chapbook exploring identity, migration, and mythology through the study of insects. This project served as my culminating work for the Certificate Program in Poetry at the Independent Publishing Resource Center and was self-published under my own imprint, Goldfish Books.
Willamette Magazine
Spring 2024
“WATER FOR ANIMALS”
(short story)
Excerpt:
“Violet doesn’t remember the peach tree in her front yard ever fruiting so early in the season. The first peach appeared sometime around her birthday, if she remembers correctly, which is in the beginning of May. Now, it is the end of June, and already the tree is looking exhausted and weighed down by its fruit, which seems to be dropping steadily and always with a soft thump. As Violet looks around the landscape of the yard, she notices that the pink and purple hydrangeas in the front yard are wilting, and even the Japanese maple tree is looking droopy.
This must be what her mother was talking about when she said there is going to be a heatwave in the Willamette Valley this week. She said it will be hotter here than almost anywhere on Earth, second only to the Sahara Desert. As Violet looks out across her yard, she imagines their garden waterless, the grass sun-scorched and yellowed, everything turning to sand as the sun beats down on her small neighborhood. She quickly shakes this thought from her head.”