Build Your Home Among Strangers, her novel, was named a New York Times Editor's Pick, won the 2016 International Latino Book Award, and was named a best book of the year by NBC Latino, the Guardian, and the Miami Herald; it has been chosen as an all-campus read at over twenty-five American campuses. Her short stories have won the Iowa Short Story Prize and the O. Henry Award. Other honors include the Henry Prize and others. She is an associate professor in the Department of English and the Institute for Ethnic Studies at the University of Nebraska, where she was born and raised in Miami, Florida.