The Corporation of Brown University

Xochitl Gonzalez, '99 is a producer, screenwriter and the New York Times bestselling author of several critically acclaimed novels, including the award-winning Olga Dies Dreaming. As a journalist, her writing on social class for The Atlantic was recognized as a 2023 finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Commentary. Her first non-fiction book, Need Blind: A Memoir of Class and Climbing in America, is forthcoming from Flatiron Books. Gonzalez is a 2026 Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Resident and a TED Democracy speaker. A native Brooklynite and proud public school graduate, Gonzalez holds an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. She is a trustee of the Brooklyn Public Library.