LEONARD, Kathy S. 1952-

PERSONAL: Born December 20, 1952, in CA; daughter of Jerome C. and Kathleen M. Leonard. Ethnicity: "Caucasian." Education: Attended University of Madrid, Spain, 1972-73; University of California, Riverside, B.A. (Spanish), 1974; California Standard Elementary Teaching Credential, 1975; Bilingual Cross-Cultural Specialist Credential, 1978; Santa Clara University, M.A. (bilingual education), 1979; California Community College, Credential (basic education), 1979; University of Nevada, Reno, B.A. (fine arts), 1983; University of Arizona, Tucson, studied at Institute of Court Interpreting, 1983; California Community College, Credential (Spanish), 1985; University of California, Davis, Ph.D. (Hispanic linguistics), 1991. Studied and conducted research in Bolivia, Argentina, Mexico, Italy, Guatemala, and Spain.

ADDRESSES: Home—2103 Prairie View E., Ames, IA 50010. Office—Iowa State University, 300 Pearson Hall, Ames, IA 50010. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER: Hollister Unified School District, CA, first- and second-grade teacher of bilingual students, 1975-78; Washoe County Municipal Court, Reno, NV, court interpreter on call, 1979-83; Yolo County Municipal Court, Woodland, CA, court interpreter on call, 1979-83; University of Reno, Reno, NV, lecturer, 1981-83; University of California, Davis, associate instructor, 1983-90, instructor, summers of 1985-89; Dixon High School, Dixon, CA, high school teacher of advanced Spanish, 1984; Yuba Community College, Woodland, CA, instructor, 1986-91; Universidad de la Plata, Buenos Aires, Argentina, instructor of English as a second language, 1990; Holmes Junior High School, Davis, Spanish teacher for seventh-and eighth-grade students, 1991; Iowa State University, Ames, assistant professor, 1991-97, associate professor of Spanish, Hispanic linguistics, and Latin American literature, 1997-2002, professor of Spanish, 2002—. Participant in conferences and workshops. Volunteer teacher of disadvantaged children and volunteer interpreter for Central American refugees.

MEMBER: American Literary Translators Association, Modern Language Association, Midwest Modern Language Association, Iowa Foreign Language Association, Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese.

AWARDS, HONORS: Rotary International fellow, 1990; LASRI summer salary grant, Iowa State University, 1992; visiting scholar, National Endowment for the Humanities summer seminar at University of Texas, Austin, and University of the Americas, Cholula, Mexico, 1992; foreign travel grant and university research grant, Iowa State University, 1992-93; incentive grant for curriculum internationalization, Iowa State University, 1993-94; instructional development grant, Iowa State University, 1994-95, 1996; research fellow and visiting scholar in Latin American studies, Cornell/Pittsburgh Consortium, Cornell University, 1995; Text and Academic Authors Association grant, 1995; travel grant, Iowa State University, 1995; special research initiation grant, Iowa State University, 1995; faculty improvement leave, 1995-96; Iowa State University Foundation Award, 1996, for early achievement in undergraduate teaching; travel grants and special opportunity grant, Center for Teaching Excellence, 1997; Wakonse fellow, 1997; Fulbright-Hays grant, 1998; Culture Corps grant, 1998, 1999, 2003, 2003-04, 2005; grant, Council on Scholarship in the Humanities, 1999; Casa Hispànica Learning Community grant, 1999, 2001-02; Council on Scholarship in the Humanities grant, 2000-03; travel grant, 2000-02; National Endowment for the Humanities grant, 2001-02, 2003; named honorary member, Uniòn Cultural Palas Atenea, 2002; Phillip G. Hubbard Award for Educational Excellence nomination, Iowa State University, 2002; designated Master Teacher for experiential learning abroad, LAS College and Center for Teaching Excellence, 2002-03.

WRITINGS:

EDITOR

(And translator) Cruel Fictions, Cruel Realities: Short Stories by Latin-American Women Writers, fore-word by Aria Maria Shua, Latin American Literary Review Press (Pittsburgh, PA), 1997.

Index to Translated Short Fiction by Latin-American Women in English-Language Anthologies, Greenwood Press (Westport, CT), 1997.

(And translator with Susan E. Benner) Fire from the Andes: Short Fiction by Women from Bolivia, Ecuador, and Peru, University of New Mexico Press (Albuquerque, NM), 1998.

TRANSLATOR

Giancarla de Quiroga, Aurora (translation of novel La flor de "la candelaria"), Women in Translation (Seattle, WA), 1999.

Contributor of translations to books, including Language and Culture in Learning: Teaching Spanish to Native Speakers of Spanish, edited by Barbara J. Merino, Henry R. Trueba, and Fabian Samaniego, Falmer Press (Washington, DC), 1993; Conversations with Susan Sontag, edited by Leland Poague, University Press of Mississippi (Jackson, MS), 1995; and The Movies: Texts, Receptions, Exposures, edited by Laurence Goldstein and Ira Konigsberg, University of Michigan Press (Ann Arbor, MI), 1996. Translations of short stories have appeared in periodicals, including American Voice, Antigonish Review, Calyx, Critical Matrix, Feminist Studies, Flyway, Michigan Quarterly Review, Puerto del Sol, and Xavier Review.

OTHER

Una revelacion desde la escritura. Entrevistas a poetas bolivianas (title means "A Literary Revelation: Interviews with Bolivian Women Authors"), Peter Lang (New York, NY), 2001.

Sentir lo oscuro, La Hoguera Editorial (Santa Cruz, Bolivia), 2002.

Bibliographic Guide to Chicana and Latina Narrative, Praeger (Westport, CT), 2003.

Contributor to books, including Visions and Reality in Foreign-Language Teaching: Where We Are, Where We Are Going. Report of Central States Conference on the Teaching of Foreign Languages, National Textbook Company (Chicago, IL), 1993; and Geography del cuerpo: Aproximaciones a la obra de Marjorie Agosin, edited by Emma Sepulveda, Cuarto Propio (Santiago, Chile), 1997. Contributor to periodicals, including Americas Review, Chasqui, Hispamerica: Revista de Literatura 75, Hispania, ERIC Digest, Innovations Abstracts, Modern Language Journal, and Dartmouth College Ram's Horn.

SIDELIGHTS: Kathy S. Leonard is an associate professor of Spanish, Hispanic linguistics, and literature at Iowa State University. She has taught at the elementary school, junior high, and high school levels and has worked as a volunteer teacher of disadvantaged children and as a volunteer interpreter for Central American refugees. In addition to her other writing, Leonard has translated short stories and essays from English into Spanish and from Spanish into English.

Leonard has traveled the world researching the writings of Latin-American women. She edited and translated Cruel Fictions, Cruel Realities: Short Stories by Latin-American Women Writers, a collection of nineteen stories by twelve women from South American countries. "These short stories are superbly written," observed Lisa Rohrbaugh in Library Journal. Each of the stories deals with cruelty, and most are "marked by heavy doses of magic realism or black humor," explained Nancy Pearl in a review for Booklist. The stories include "The Sailor's Wife," by Silvia Diaz Fierro, a tale of a man who loves a mermaid, and a story by Ines Fernandez Moreno about a mother whose children's needs deprive her of her body parts. World Literature Today contributor Naomi Lindstrom noted that the works in Cruel Fictions "are well written," commenting that the volume "succeeds in being different and surprising," and advising that "anyone whose familiarity with Spanish American women's writing is through translation should take a look at Leonard's anthology."

The growth of women's studies programs has also led to an increased interest in the writings of Latin-American women. Leonard edited Index to Translated Short Fiction by Latin-American Women in English-Language Anthologies, a guide to Spanish and Portuguese fiction published in over one hundred anthologies from 1918 to 1996. With Susan E. Benner, Leonard also edited and translated Fire from the Andes: Short Fiction by Women from Bolivia, Ecuador, and Peru. Fire from the Andes features short stories by twenty-four contemporary female writers from the three countries referenced in the book's title. It includes biographical information about the authors, bibliographies featuring literature from Bolivia, Ecuador, and Peru, and "an excellent bibliography" listing short stories written in Spanish, according to Library Journal contributor Mary Margaret Benson. Benson commented that "the stories, for the most part dark, center on women's interior lives." Fire from the Andes contains Ecuadorian Monica Bravo's story of an old woman who knits memories of her past into a shroud, Bolivian Marcella Gutierrez's contemporary account of the biblical figures of Adam, Eve, and Lilith, and Peruvian Pilar Dughi's tale of a woman who becomes a terrorist.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Americas, April, 2000, Barbara Mujica, review of Aurora, p. 62.

Booklist, August, 1997, Nancy Pearl, review of Cruel Fictions, Cruel Realities: Short Stories by Latin-American Women Writers, p. 1876.

Library Journal, September 15, 1997, Lisa Rohrbaugh, review of Cruel Fictions, Cruel Realities, p. 105; February 1, 1998, Mary Margaret Benson, review of Fire from the Andes: Short Fiction by Women from Bolivia, Ecuador, and Peru, p. 114.

Review of Contemporary Fiction, spring, 1998, Robert Headley, review of Cruel Fictions, Cruel Realities, p. 252.

World Literature Today, spring, 1998, Naomi Lindstrom, review of Cruel Fictions, Cruel Realities, pp. 345-346.