Meet Our New Intern: Reina Maiden-Navarro

For a long time, I was told my writing was “proficient.” Not good, not even okay, but proficient. In fact, every single one of my papers was marked with this word in a large red scrawl. 

You see, my elementary school had a rather peculiar grading scale. It looked something like this:

A: Advanced (90–100%)

P: Proficient (80–89%)

B: Basic (70–79%)

BB: Below Basic (60–69%)

F: Failed (0–59%)

More than anything, I wanted to be an advanced writer. The words almost sparkled to me. My teachers never had anything bad to say, always praising my competency and citing my growth, but it never felt like I was good enough. Looking back, I now understand. I was primarily raised by my deaf and Spanish-speaking mother. While she always reinforced my reading habit, communicating my own thoughts in words and constructing my own sentences in English hadn’t always come easily to me. 

In my last year of elementary school, I finally received my first-ever “advanced” on a paper about Rosa Parks. My teacher, Ms. Brace, said it was the first time she heard my “voice” in an essay. 

Throughout my life, I’ve fallen in and out of love with the written word, but the whole time, I’ve learned to lead with my voice by imbuing my passion into my writing.

On the first floor of the Ayala Science Library at UC Irvine, I became an advanced writer professionally. For two years, I worked at my university’s writing center, serving as both a Writing Tutor and a Community Outreach Coordinator. It was the best part of my college experience. I met with hundreds of peers, many of whom were first-generation or international students. We bonded over language barriers and cultural storytelling. My favorite part was seeing the growth of my repeat students experienced over the course of a quarter or a year as they came into their identity as new writers. I finally understood what Ms. Brace meant about using my voice. I tried to help others do the same.

This passion for ushering in the stories of underrepresented writers is what led me to Sundress Publications. As I begin my role as an Editorial Intern, I hope to continue to use my story to connect with readers and find common ground with the authors I work with.

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Reina Maiden-Navarro is an editor, writer, and photographer. She recently graduated from UC Irvine with a degree in Film & Media Studies and a minor in Creative Writing, cum laude. She also works as an Editor at Prompt and an Outreach Coordinator at Bookstr. If she is not reading or writing, she can be found traveling, painting, or baking cookies.