Master of Fine Arts Visiting Writer

Andrew Winkelmann

Andrew Diaz Winkelmann is a Cuban-American novelist born and raised in Atlanta, GA. Growing up in a multi-cultural family where cuentos of the glory years in Cuba abounded, his love for storytelling flourished. Andrew was writing and selling short stories to the employees at his grandfather’s business (and to his classmates at school) since he was six years old, realizing early on that writing was his favorite form of creative expression. One of the cuentos shared with him by his Abuelo Rene and Abuela Ines, the story of the day his family left Cuba, is what first became the short-story, “The Cuban Dream,” and eventually inspired his debut novel, The Guava Tree. Andrew continues to write fiction (with a second novel in-progress) and is passionate about uplifting the Latino community in the United States, having served at the board or committee level of multiple non-profits, and currently serves as the Vice Chairman of HoPe (Hispanic Organization Promoting Education), the largest Latino/Hispanic educational leadership program in the US as well as on the Georgia Hispanic Chamber of Commerce’s board of directors. He lives in Atlanta with his wife and their two young children.