Join the Black Mountain Institute for a conversation with Ruben Reyes Jr., author of the critically acclaimed short story collection, There’s a Rio Grande in Heaven (2024), and his debut novel, Archive of Unknown Universes (2025). In these works, Reyes uses techniques from speculative fiction and the latinofuturist movement to explore identity, culture, and belonging as a member of the Salvadoran diaspora. What does it mean to belong to a people group whose existential condition both in the U.S and in El Salvador, as Reyes puts it, “feels quite dystopic?” How can one use science fiction, fantasy, and horror to reimagine the very real injustices perpetrated on a daily basis? What is latinofuturism, and how does this narrative style act as a bridge to familiarize those unfamiliar with these struggles? This conversation will better help us understand Reyes’s craft, and the techniques he uses to create compelling and devastating narratives.
Ruben Reyes Jr. is the son of two Salvadoran immigrants. He completed his MFA in fiction at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. He is a graduate of Harvard College where he studied History and Literature and Latinx Studies. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Boston Globe, The Washington Post, AGNI, BOMB Magazine, Lightspeed Magazine, LitHub, and other publications. In 2026, he was named a Forbes 30 under 30. His debut story collection, There is a Rio Grande in Heaven, was a finalist for The Story Prize, and longlisted for the the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, the Carnegie Medal for Excellence, the Aspen Words Literary Prize, and the New American Voices Award. Archive of Unknown Universes is his first novel. Originally from Southern California, he lives in Queens.
Gustavo Alvarenga is a Salvadoran American immigrant writer based out of Las Vegas, NV where he is completing an MFA in Fiction at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. His work focuses on heritage, cultural exile, his relationship to language, and liminal spaces. He explores these themes through boundaries, both literal and metaphorical such as the border between life and the afterlife and as such his work often features the dead, the dying, and the undead. He recently completed a week-long conference at the 2025 Tin House Writer’s Workshop in Portland where he studied under Julián Delgado Lopera. His literary influences include Toni Morrison, Sandra Cisneros, Louise Erdrich, and Gina Maria Balibrera just to name a few. He enjoys being outdoors with his dog Nissa where they go camping, fishing, and rock climbing as well as a good board game night with friends.