Ideas By Alejandro Puyana October 30, 2024 6:00 AM EDT Alejandro Puyana is a Venezuelan writer living in Austin and received his MFA from the Michener Center for Writers at the University of Texas. His story, “The Hands of Dirty Children,” was selected by Curtis Sittenfeld for Best American Short Stories 2020 and his debut novel, Freedom Is a Feast , is set in Chávez-era Venezuela and was published in August by Little, Brown. E mi, my mom, was ready. She had printed out a sample ballot and