Amaris Castillo is an award-winning journalist, writer, and the creator of Bodega Stories, a series featuring real stories from the corner store. Born in Brooklyn, New York to Dominican parents, she credits the many tales she heard growing up to her love of storytelling.
Amaris has reported for The New York Times, The Sun (in Lowell, Massachusetts), the Bradenton Herald, Remezcla, Latina Magazine, Parents Latina Magazine, and elsewhere. She has received fellowships from the International Center for Journalists, the International Women’s Media Foundation, the Society for Features Journalism, and the Journalism & Women Symposium. In 2018 Amaris was named New England Journalism’s Newsroom Rising Star by the New England Society of News Editors.
When she isn’t reporting on the media for her job, Amaris is piecing together fiction stories. Her writing has appeared in La Galería Magazine, Aster(ix) Journal, Spanglish Voces, PALABRITAS, Dominican Moms Be Like… (part of the Dominican Writers Association’s #DWACuenticos chapbook series), and most recently Quislaona: A Dominican Fantasy Anthology. She has new work forthcoming in Sana, Sana: Latinx Pain and Radical Visions for Healing and Justice — available for preorder now.
Her short story “El Don” was a prize finalist for the 2022 Elizabeth Nunez Caribbean-American Writers’ Prize by the Brooklyn Caribbean Literary Festival, and her short story “The Moon and the Sun” was longlisted for the same prize in 2021.
Amaris is a volunteer reader for Aster(ix) Journal and a book reviewer for the Dominican Writers Association and Latinx in Publishing. She has received mentorship from several amazing authors and an amazing editor: award-winning author Natalia Sylvester as an inaugural Periplus Fellow, award-winning children’s book author Monica Brown through Las Musas, and Arely Guzmán through the Kweli Journal Sing the Truth! Mentorship Program. She is currently being mentored through the Latinx in Publishing Writers Mentorship Program and is seeking literary representation.
Amaris earned her B.A. in journalism from the University of South Florida and an M.S. in journalism from Columbia Graduate School of Journalism. She is currently a research/writing assistant for the NPR Public Editor’s Office and contributes to Poynter.org. She lives in Florida with her family and dog, Brooklyn.