who we are
Carmen Calatayud is a poet and nonfiction writer. Her book, In the Company of Spirits (Press 53, 2012) was a runner-up for the Academy of American Poets Walt Whitman Award and an Andrés Montoya Poetry Prize finalist. Her poetry and nonfiction have appeared in print and online in Beltway Poetry Quarterly, The Banyan Review, Cutthroat, Gargoyle, The Manifest-Station, Poet Lore, Virginia Quarterly Review, and Verse Daily. She is a Larry Neal Poetry Award winner and a Virginia Center for the Creative Arts fellow. Carmen has dedicated her time to the immigrant rights movement through poetry and activism and works as a trauma therapist to assist people on their healing journeys.
ire’ne lara silva (she/they) is the author of four poetry collections, furia, Blood Sugar Canto, CUICACALLI/House of Song, and FirstPoems, two chapbooks, Enduring Azucares and Hibiscus Tacos, and a short story collection, flesh to bone, which won the Premio Aztlán. She and poet Dan Vera are also the co-editors of Imaniman: Poets Writing in the Anzaldúan Borderlands, a collection of poetry and essays. ire’ne is the recipient of a 2021 Tasajillo Writers Grant, a 2017 NALAC Fund for the Arts Grant, the final Alfredo Cisneros del Moral Award, and was the Fiction Finalist for AROHO’s 2013 Gift of Freedom Award. Most recently, ire’ne was awarded the 2021 Texas Institute of Letters Shrake Award for Best Short Nonfiction. ire’ne is currently a Writer at Large for Texas Highways Magazine and is working on a second collection of short stories titled, the light of your body. Website: irenelarasilva.wordpress.com
jo reyes-boitel (she/they) is a poet and playwright, queer mixed Latinx, amateur hand percussionist, and parent now working on their MFA in Creative Writing at the University of Texas-Rio Grande Valley, where they also serve as a teaching assistant. Their publications include Michael + Josephine, a novel in verse (FlowerSong Press, 2019) and the chapbook, mouth (Neon Hemlock, 2021). “she wears bells,” their hybrid opera, was chosen as a finalist for Guerilla Opera’s 2022 annual virtual festival. Recent or forthcoming publications include Zocalo Public Square, Huizache, Acentos Review, and OyeDrum. For more information about jo and their work visit joreyesboitel.com.
Angelina Sáenz is an award-winning educator and poet whose work focuses on memory, mujeres, and motherhood. She is a UCLA Writing Project fellow, an alumnae of the VONA/Voices Workshop for Writers of Color and a Macondo Writer’s Workshop Fellow. Her poetry has appeared in venues such as Diálogo, Split This Rock, Out of Anonymity, Angels Flight Literary West, Every Other, Cockpit Revue Paris, and Acentos Review. Her debut book of poetry, Edgecliff, was released in December of 2021 with FlowerSong Press. Website: angelinasaenz.com.
Jen Yáñez-Alaniz (she/her) is a Chicana Mestiza activist, educator, scholar, and poet. She is a PhD Fellow in Culture, Literacy, and Language, Department of Bilingual Bicultural Studies at the University of Texas, San Antonio. Her focused studies center on Translanguaging Poetics as Third Space. As co- founder of Welcome: A Poetry Declaration, she brings awareness through equity-driven cultural conversations centered on language justice, the preservation of language, and language literacy. Her work, Matrilineal Poetics: Toward an Understanding of Corporeality and Identity is featured in Latinas in Hollywood Herstories. A Pushcart nominee, her latest and forthcoming publications are included in The Journal of Latina Critical Feminism, South Dakota Review, Rogue Agent Journal, Mom Egg Review, West Trestle Review, Cutthroat: Puro Chicanx Writers of the 21st Century Anthology, Boundless Anthology, and more. She is currently at work on an extensive critical biography of Carmen Tafolla and Jen’s first collection of poetry titled “Surrogate Eater” is currently under editorial review for publication.
CORAZÓN COLLECTIVE 