Photo Credit:  Annastina Hoeglin Davis Åre, Sweden, 2012.

Photo Credit:
Annastina Hoeglin Davis
Åre, Sweden, 2012.

Rosa Burke Perez

The only child of a Cuban father and an Irish mother, Rosa Burke Perez was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, on May 16, 1935. She graduated from Walnut Hills High School and went on to be a columnist for The Cincinnati Post while acquiring her B.A. from the University of Cincinnati. She married in 1956 and in 1958 moved to Mill Valley, California, where her four children were born, where much of her writing is set, and where she lived—including seven years in San Francisco—until 2004. She now shares her time with her children and seven grandchildren in northern California and northern Sweden, the latter locale inspiring her current work.

Upon becoming a single mother in 1969, Rosa began DELIA FAIR, her trilogy of epic poems performed as solo plays. During this work’s lengthy evolution she taught writing and performance to middle school students, campaigned to end the nuclear arms race, served on staff for San Francisco’s largest march protesting the Gulf War, aided conscientious objectors, and entertained a remarkable cross-section of audiences at prestigious campuses, churches, and conferences across the country, often conducting workshops titled “Creating a World That Works.”

The completion of her first trilogy in 1995 led Rosa to embark on her ongoing companion trilogy, OPERATION EDEN, and to then realize that DELIA FAIR is her own Odyssey and OPERATION EDEN her contemporary Iliad.


DELIA FAIR:
A Tapestry of Home

THE 215 DREAM:
An Epic Of Faith

REAL TOWN:
A Joyful Possibility

THE BAREFOOT PRINCE:
An Equation Of Love

OPERATION EDEN:
Blueprints for Humanity

FUTURE SPY:
Dispatches From The Frontiers Of Now

ONCE UPON A SPIRAL…
…Happily Ever After

¡VIVA LA RESOLUCIÓN!
In The Streets Of Everywhere


Rosa’s Parents’ Wedding Day

Mary Frances Burke and S. Delio Perez
August 11, 1934
Benjamin Studio Grand
Cincinnati, Ohio

Rosa

January 1936
Young & Carl
Cincinnati, Ohio

Rosa’s Four Children

1991
Annastina Hoeglin Davis
Mill Valley, California