Menéndez spent six years as a journalist in the 1990s. She began at the
Miami Herald in 1991, where she covered the Miami neighborhood of
Little Havana, and then moved to the
Orange County Register in California. After pursuing a literary career for several years, she returned to the
Miami Herald in 2005 as a columnist. In 2008, Menéndez took a leave of absence from the
Miami Herald to accept a
Fulbright grant to teach at the
American University in Cairo. In 1997, Menéndez entered the Creative Writing Program at
New York University, where she was a
New York Times fellow. Her collection of short stories,
In Cuba I Was a German Shepherd, was published shortly after her graduation in 2001. The
New York Times named it a Notable Book of The Year and the title story won the
Pushcart Prize for short fiction. Menéndez published her first novel,
Loving Che, in 2003. Her third book,
The Last War, was published by HarperCollins in June 2009.
Adios, Happy Homeland! a book of linked, formally experimental short stories was published in 2011. ==See also==