Manuel Gayol Mecías is the Director and Editor of Palabra Abierta (“Open Word”; mu.gayol3@gmail.com), and a Cuban writer and newspaper man. He was a Senior Researcher in the Literature Investigation Center of the Casa de las Américas (Havana, 1979-1989), and was a member of the editorial board of Vivarium magazine, a review published under the tutelage of the Archidiosis of Havana. He has published innumerable critic essays, short stories, novels and poetry in many Cuban and foreign literary reviews and newspapers, and has been the recipient of various prizes in literature, among them the Short Story National Prize of the Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba (UNEAC), 1992, and the Enrique Labrador Ruiz International Short Story Prize of the Círculo de Cultura Panamericano (Pan-American Circle of Culture) of New York, 2004. He worked as editor of Contact Review, from 1994 to 1996. He worked at La Opinión Spanish Newspaper as Editor and Copyeditor (1998 to 2014). At present, he is one of the founders of the Club del Pensamiento Crítico at the Huntington Park Public Library. He is a member of Cuban History Academy in Exile, and a member of Cuban Pen Club in Exile, too, and vice president of Vista Larga Foundation. Published works include "Retable of the Fable" (Poems, Editorial Letras Cubanas, 1989); "Multiple Appraisal of Andre’s Bello" (Compilation, Editorial Casa de las Américas, 1989); "The Jaguar is an Amber Dream" (Short stories, Provincial Center of the Havana Book Editorial, 1990); "Return of the Doubt" (Poems, Vivarium Editions, Archiepiscopal Center of Studies, Havana, 1995); "The Night of the Great Goth" (Short stories, Neo Club Editions, Miami, 2011); "Eyes of Red Goth" (Novel, Neo Club Editions, Miami, 2012); "Marja and the Eye of the Maker" (Novel, Neo Club Editions, Miami, 2013); "Inverse Trip towards the Reign of the Imagery" (Essays, Neo Club Editions, Miami, 2014) and "The Fire’s Artifice" (Short stories, Neo Club Editions, Miami, 2014); "Coincidencias de un editor (o el exorcismo de Joel Merlín)" (Novel, Palabra Abierta/Neo Club Ediciones, Eastvale/Miami, 2015); "La penumbra de Dios (De la Creación, la Libertad y las Revelaciones)" (Essays, Palabra Abierta/Neo Club Ediciones, Eastvale/Miami, 2015); "Las vibraciones de la luz (Ficciones divinas y profanas). Intuiciones II" (Essays, Palabra Abierta Ediciones/ Alexandria Library Publishing House, Eastvale/Miami, 2016).
