## SHORT BIO (50 words)
Elena Vasquez weaves forgotten voices of the Spanish Civil War into *Echoes of the Sierra*, her gripping historical novel exposing the silenced stories of rural guerrillas. A former investigative journalist, she unearths truths with unflinching prose. Now chasing leads in Madrid's archives for her next tale of resilience.

(48 words)

## MEDIUM BIO (150 words)
Elena Vasquez's *Echoes of the Sierra* resurrects the raw defiance of rural guerrillas during the Spanish Civil War, blending exhaustive research with vivid storytelling. After a decade as an investigative journalist for El País, exposing corruption in post-Franco Spain, she turned to fiction to honor the unsung. Her reporting on forgotten villages informed the novel's haunting authenticity—drawing from interviews with survivors' descendants. Elena's work has appeared in Granta and The Guardian. A mother of two who brews strong coffee while plotting twists, she splits time between Madrid and the Sierra Nevada mountains that inspired her. Currently, she's deep into research for a sequel tracing exiles across continents.

(142 words)

## LONG BIO (300 words)
Born in the shadow of the Sierra Nevada, Elena Vasquez grew up listening to her grandmother's whispered accounts of the Spanish Civil War—tales of neighbors turned fighters, hidden in olive groves. Those stories lingered, fueling her path from journalism to novels. Starting as a stringer for local papers, she climbed to investigative reporter at El País, where her exposés on land grabs and political amnesia earned her Spain's Ortega y Gasset Prize for Journalism in 2015. But facts alone couldn't capture the human ache; in 2020, she pivoted to fiction with *Echoes of the Sierra*. The novel, rooted in declassified archives and oral histories from over 50 descendants, follows a young shepherdess joining the guerrillas, her world unraveling amid betrayal and frostbitten escapes. Critics hailed its "unsparing intimacy," landing spots on Spain's bestseller lists and longlists for the Premio Planeta. Influences like Javier Cercas and Carmen Laforet echo in her obsession with memory's fractures—how history hides in plain sight. Elena's thematic fixations stem from her own family's fractured past: a grandfather executed as a Republican, a mother who burned family letters to evade Franco's spies. These threads weave through her prose, making the personal indelibly political. Today, from her Madrid apartment overlooking the Retiro, she balances writing with mentoring young reporters. Her next project, a nonfiction-fiction hybrid on Civil War exiles in Mexico, promises to bridge continents and generations. Elena Vasquez doesn't just write history; she revives its ghosts, ensuring the Sierra's echoes endure.

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## FIRST-PERSON "ABOUT ME" (100 words)
I write to give voice to the silenced—like the rural guerrillas in *Echoes of the Sierra*, who fought with slingshots against Franco's machine guns. After years chasing corruption as a journalist, I craved stories that let imagination fill the gaps truth leaves. Born to secrets in southern Spain, I'm drawn to how ordinary people bend under history's boot yet refuse to break. When not hiking the Sierra Nevada for inspiration or wrangling my kids, you'll find me in dusty archives, coffee in hand. Stick around—my exiles' saga is next.

(98 words)

## SOCIAL HANDLE BIOS
- **Twitter/X (160 chars):** Elena Vasquez unearths Civil War ghosts in *Echoes of the Sierra*—guerrillas vs. Franco's frost. Ex-El País journalist gone novelist. Sierra hikes, strong coffee, stubborn truths. #HistoricalFiction #EchoesSierra [link to book]

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- **Instagram (150 chars):**
Voice of the forgotten Sierra fighters.  
*Echoes of the Sierra*—raw tales of guerrilla grit.  
Ex-journalist, archive hound 🏔️📜  
Madrid-based, plotting exiles next.  
DM for collabs. #EchoesSierra

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- **LinkedIn (220 chars):** Elena Vasquez, author of *Echoes of the Sierra* (historical fiction illuminating Spanish Civil War guerrillas' untold defiance). Former El País investigative journalist (Ortega y Gasset Prize 2015). Expertise: narrative nonfiction, historical research. Open to speaking, consulting on memory politics. Madrid. [Book link] [Website]

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## AUTHOR PHOTO CAPTION
Elena Vasquez in her Madrid study, surrounded by Sierra Nevada maps that fueled *Echoes of the Sierra*.

## MEDIA CONTACT BLOCK
Elena Vasquez  
elena@elenavasquez.com  
+34 91 123 4567  
www.elenavasquez.com  
Twitter/X: @ElenaVasqWrites | Instagram: @elenavasquezbooks | LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/elenavasquez