Adriana Páramo is a cultural anthropologist from the University of Alaska, Anchorage. She is a creative writing graduate student at the University of South Florida. “Like a Leech” is an excerpt from a work-in-progress titled, My Mother’s Funeral. Additional excerpts are forthcoming in the Alaska Quarterly Review, the Los Angeles Review, and F-Magazine. Other essays have appeared in Latina Voices and Lip Service Stories. Her story, “He Tells Me That I’m Beautifool,” won Best Short Story in the 2005 Royal Palm Literary Event.