Her poetry and fiction draw from the rhythms and language of her Trinidad and St. Vincent heritage, and are tempered by 33 years as a UAW worker, 21 of them at the Cadillac Plant in Detroit. She is the author of AUTOPSY OF AN ENGINE AND OTHER STORIES FROM THE CADILLAC PLANT (Coffee House Press), which won a 2005 PEN Beyond Margins Award. She is the author of two collections of poems : QUIET BATTLES AND SNAKECROSSING. Her work appears in many literary publications, and she reads from her works nationally and in the Detroit area. She has taught creative writing at the Western Wayne Correctional Facility and compiled the resulting work into an anthology entitled, Gittin Down : Profiles from Michigan Prison Writers. She has taught creative writing at the Wayne State University Labor School, sociology and composition at the Detroit College of Business, as well as Diversity in Society online for Davenport University. She works for the UAW in the UAW-GM Quality Network. Lolita has an MFA in creative writing from the Vermont College of Norwich University, a B.A. in journalism from Wayne State University, a B.A. in psychology from the University of Michigan; a UAW journeyman card in Experimental Product Engineering Layout and Assembly; and a well-deserved B.S. from the school of life. She is an active member of UAW Local 160.

On AUTOPSY OF AN ENGINE (fiction): “In her account of the closing of the Clark Street facility of the Cadillac Motor Company, Lolita Hernandez positions herself at the intersection of journalism and literature. Here is not only a report from the assembly line, brilliantly told. This is also a talented writer's record of loss, a poet’s meditation from inside the working place.” --Richard Rodriguez