Cat De La Paz is a detribalized Indigenous trans Chicana writer in Seattle.

She is primarily focused on how an interior life survives compulsory visibility. Her work is less interested in plot, and more focused on her characters’ weather patterns. How do we navigate someone who is a storm? Is it just easier to love clear skies? De La Paz wrestles with these ideas and witnesses them play out in her fiction.

Her debut short story, “You Were Always My Mija,” appeared in The Louisville Review (Fall 2025) and was nominated for the 2026 Pushcart Prize. Her work was longlisted for the 2026 Sunspot Lit Rigel Contest. “The Men Aren’t Lonely Enough” is now available in Vol. 10, Issue 1 of Ponder Review.