Margo Sanabria     Researcher, 2005

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Margo Sanabria joined the Diary Project as a research volunteer in February 2005. She enjoyed her forays into the mid and late 1800s so much that she returned as a research intern that same fall for academic credit.

Sanabria supplied detailed historical data on such diverse diary topics as Russian vapor bathes, circulating libraries, “black” diphtheria, lives of period musicians, singers, political figures, and Steinway associates. She also searched for complete programs of and critical reactions to the many concerts and soirees that Steinway attended. Her other assignments encompassed locating copies of photographs of individuals and of current and period street maps to use for comparison.

Sanabria grew up in St. Louis, Missouri. She has a BA in Spanish from the University of Missouri-St. Louis, and an MFA in creative writing from George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. During the winter of 2007–2008, she worked as an intern reporter for the Arts & Entertainment section of The Connection Newspapers. Most notably, she covered the fundraiser for Irish balladeer Danny Doyle, interviewed a writer who finally became a published author after 20 year of rejections, and introduced her readers to a local Presbyterian minister whose ministry and book combine spirituality, diet and exercise. Sanabria works at a Washington, DC foundation while continuing to pursue a writing career. One of her poems appeared in Lavandería: A Mixed Load of Women, Wash and Word (SD City Works Press, 2009), the 2010 recipient of the Sixteenth Annual San Diego Books and Writing Award for Best Anthology. In her current writings Sanabria explores issues of familial, ethnic, and cultural dissonance and dislocation.