Aja Martinez is assistant professor of writing and rhetoric at the University of North Texas. Martinez conducts research on and teaches a range of courses concerning rhetorics of race within both Western and non-Euro-Western contexts, and beginning, professional, and advanced writing courses. Martinez's work argues specifically that counterstory provides opportunities for other(ed) perspectives to contribute to conversations about narrative, dominant ideology, and their intersecting influence on curricular standards and institutional practices. Voices from the margins can become voices of authority through the formation of counterstories--stories that examine, document, and expose the persistence of racial oppression and other forms of subordination. Counterstory serves as a natural extension of inquiry for theorists whose research recognizes and incorporates lived and embodied experiences of marginalized peoples both in the United States and abroad. Martinez's scholarship has appeared in College English, Composition Studies, Peitho, and Rhetoric Review.