Lawrence La Fountain-Stokes is a Puerto Rican writer, performer, and scholar. Born and raised in San Juan, Puerto Rico, he received his bachelor’s degree from Harvard in 1991 and a doctorate in Spanish from Columbia University in 1999. He is currently an Associate Professor of American Culture and Romance Languages and Literatures at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, where he specializes in Latina/o, Puerto Rican and Hispanic Caribbean studies, with additional interests in women’s, gender, and sexuality studies; lesbian, gay, and queer studies; and theater and performance. He is author of Queer Ricans: Cultures and Sexualities in the Diaspora (University of Minnesota Press, 2009), which focuses on Puerto Rican LGBT migration and culture, and of a book of short stories called Uñas pintadas de azul/Blue Fingernails (Bilingual Press/Editorial Bilingüe, Arizona, 2009). He was one of the co-editors of a special issue of CENTRO: Journal of the Center for Puerto Rican Studies on Puerto Rican Queer Sexualities (2007). He regularly teaches courses on Latina/o literature, culture, and cinema.