Terri de la Peña, novelist, short-story writer, and fifth-generation Californian, focuses her narratives on the myriad of cultural and social issues that Chicana lesbians face, such as a search for identity, cultural assimilation, class consciousness, historical awareness, internal and external racism, and homophobia. Her writings, therefore, continue a literary tradition and treatment of themes that began with earlier Chicana writers such as Gloria Anzaldúa and Cherríe Moraga.

Mary Theresa de la Peña was born on 20 February 1947 in Santa Monica, California. Her father, Joaquin de la Peña, was a tire repair foreman; her mother, Juanita Escobedo, owned a beauty shop. De la Peña was educated in Santa Monica parochial schools and at Santa Monica Community College, but she is a self-taught writer. She began to write fiction as an adolescent, though her first publication, "A Saturday in...