Alejandro Cabada Fernández
Alejandro Cabada Fernández writes poetry and short story. His work has been published in a diverse series of publications in Mexico and the US. Proud of his Mexican heritage, he likes to promote the Spanish language in the Valley through his literary work and his music. He has a BA in Spanish and is currently pursuing a Masters in Spanish Literature at the University of Texas Pan American. He is the author of Escarlata: Un libro de poemas (2009) and Días de púrpura (2011), the second book in the Colors Trilogy, both from Editora Campamocha.
Amanda Bloodgood
Amanda Bloodgood is a native Virginian residing in and loving sunny Austin, Texas. She also loves poetry, photography and animals. She is a perpetual student of the human condition. Her grades are questionable.
Angel
Angel Rodrigiez is the very first Sun Fish Artist with many gigs and experience under his belt and an extensive background in recording and audio production. He is the head recording engineer as well as The President of Sun Fish Records. A newfound source in the Rio Grande Valley scene both in music and audio production, Angel strives to help the local musicians with every facet of their career.
Arturo Saldaña
Arturo Saldaña is the proud son of María López Saldaña and Agustín Cisneros Guillen. Born in McAllen, Arturo sauntered through life as a Chicano activist, an agricultural migrant worker, a student with three degrees, a truck driver, a United States Army veteran, and mucho mas things. Suffice to say, Arturo enjoys life as he casts images with the spoken word.
Beth Cortez-Neavel
Beth Cortez-Neavel has lived and played in Austin for over 20 years and has been writing for almost as long. She enjoys cooking, writing, sarcasm, good art and video games set on “easy.” The daughter of a Mexican-American father who was the first US citizen in his family, and an American-born gringa mother, Beth is no stranger to living the life in between borders. She has been published in print and online in a few anthologies and electronic magazines. She makes sporadic appearances at open mics and poetry readings around Austin. Her short essay “Vacation from Life” was published in Writing Austin’s Lives: A Community Portrait (2004). She has been a regular contributor to the e-zine Haggardandhalloo.com since 2007. She was published in the 2011 Austin International Poetry Festival anthology Di-verse-city. Beth is currently working toward a Master of Arts degree in Professional Journalism from the University of Texas at Austin and has worked as a freelance journalist for KUT News, The Austin Times, Culturemap.com, and The Austin Creative Alliance.
Beto Conde
Beto Conde has written a series of short stories and poems about his Vietnam experience titled “Moonlight Faces.” One of the poems was selected for the tribute at the 25th anniversary of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. which he read at the event. He currently lives in the Valley and writes poetry and short stories.
Ken "Bluetown" Trevino
Ken "Bluetown" Treviño is a husband and a father who teaches English at Port Isabel High School. He is a poet and playwright. Bluetown is a member of the Narciso Martínez Cultural Arts Center Writers Forum and a co-founder of the Laguna Madre Writers Forum. His passions include poetry, music, and surfing. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in English from Incarnate Word College and an Associate of Arts in Behavioral Sciences from San Antonio College. He is most proud of his wife Susy and his two daughets: Otilia Doralee and Kendra Susset.
Brenda Nettles-Riojas
Brenda, in her own words: "I write in order to breathe,it's as simple as that or maybe not. Working on master’s degree of Fine Arts in creative writing through the University of New Orleans. Completed three summer residencies - Madrid, Spain (2007), San Miguel de Allende, Mexico (2008); Ezra Pound Center for Literature at Brunnenburg in Merano Italy (2009) Poetry has been published in a number of publications including di-verse-city (Austin International Poetry Anthology), Ribbons (Quarterly Journal Published by the Tanka Society of America), 2008 Texas Poetry Calendar, Interstice and Ezra -- An Online Journal of Translation."
Celeste De Luna
Celeste De Luna is visual artist/art educator from lower South Texas. She has exhibited her work in various cities in the Rio Grande Valley, San Antonio, San Diego, and Chicago. De Luna is a part time instructor at South Texas College, continues her studio practice, and collaborative creative projects. You can reach her at litebluna@me.com - “My artwork seeks to validate Xicano/indigenous people’s experiences, my personal narrative in that experience, and strives to be aesthetically pleasing, even though some subjects may be disturbing. Common themes in my work include migrant/border experiences of women, children, and families, the experience of mixed documentation status families, the social effects of documentation status, and the spiritual struggle of conflicting identities, including “survivor’s guilt”. A migrant can be defined as a person who physically moves from one country to another. I see myself as a migrant moving back and forth through multiple conceptual worlds.” C. De Luna
Christian Salinas
Christian Salinas is an online content creator for Border Perspective, which is an independent digital media company based in South Texas. He is also content editor for the news website www.rgherald.com based in Starr County Texas.
David Bowles
David Bowles was born in 1970 in Upper Marlboro, Maryland, but has lived the majority of his life in South Carolina and the Río Grande Valley of south Texas, where he presently resides with his wife and children. Since 1994 he has worked in public education, as a teacher, administrator and university professor. A writer of young adult fiction, Latino-themed magical realism and politically speculative science fiction, Bowles launched his D'Angelo Chronicles in 2009. In April of 2011, Absey & Co. published The Seed: Stories from the River's Edge, a collection of YA short stories the author collaborated with his wife, Angélica Maldonado, to create. He is also the editor of Along the River: An Anthology of Voices from the Río Grande Valley and Donna Hooks Fletcher: Life and Writings. He is presently one of the editors of the magazine Flashquake.
David Reyes
Lives here in the Rio Grande Valley, near Elsa, Texas. 50+ years old and been a wannabe writer for years. A poem has been published and a short play David wrote was performed several years back.
David E. Cowen
David E. Cowen is a native of Brownsville, Texas who now lives in Houston. Besides being a trial attorney by trade David is a published poet and author of a volume of poetry entitled Sixth and Adams (2001). His poems have been published in various hard copy and online journals for the past many years including those published by George Mason University, Stephen F. Austin University, Sam Houston State University and many privately published journals as well. His poetry was featured in the Canadian Broadcasting Company’s Radio radio journal "Outfront" in a 2005 tribute on 9/11. This April, Thisibelieve.org published an essay of his in its collection "On Motherhood" currently available in bookstores. Also, three short scholarly articles on the subject of zombie films written by David will appear in June Pulliam's "The Encyclopedia of the Zombie: The Walking Dead in Popular Culture and Myth" to be published later this year by ABC CLIO publishing. Earlier this year CineAction Magazine, Canada’s leading film journal, published my essay review of Danel Olson’s The Exorcist: Studies in the Horror Film published earlier this year, also by Centipede Press. PS Press will be including a short story by Cowen, “The Goth Thing”, in its 5th Volume of its acclaimed Exotic Gothic series scheduled to be published in 2013. David E. Cowen is the Vice President of the Gulf Coast Poetry Association as well as a member of the World Fantasy Conference and the Science Fiction Poetry Association.
Dennis Sumrak
Dennis Sumrak was born in Fort Worth, TX where he learned to fish, hunt, and play football. Dennis moved to El Paso in 1961 at the age of fourteen and started learning Spanish because "I felt comfortable with Mexicans and their culture". His education comes from UTEP and Ciudad Juarez. Dennis has been a pilot, air traffic controller and a home builder. "I love sailing. I am interested in writing, travel and photography. In the past six months I have had three magazine articles accepted by history publications. I am currently based in the Dallas-Fort Worth during the winters and in the Sacramento Mountains of New Mexico during the summers."
Don Clifford
Don Clifford is an armchair historian and archaeologist who has traveled through many of the countries that provide locales for the story's main character, Abel ben Solomon. He is also, a retired USAF officer who trained as a navigator. While researching ancient navigation techniques, which are featured in the story, he learned the old ways are still practical with an added boost from Crichton E.M. Miller's book, "The Golden Thread of Time."
Dustin David Pickering
From Dustin Pickering, editor at Harbinger Asylum, a Houston-based literary magazine. It is co-edited with Alex Maass. The contributors vary: "I want something that challenges the status quo and reveals the inner workings of human compassion. As editor of Harbinger Asylum, I don’t mind offending religious sensibilities, churches and/or bigots of all stripes and colors. I am neither clown nor coward. I despise hate speech, but I also hate political correctness."
Edgardo
Born in Houston, Texas and moved to Raymondvile, Texas in 1969. Family bought a radio station and helped with the family business until it was sold in 1997. Since then started an agency and mostly writes about experiences in Deep South Texas. Writers of the Rio Grande founder, editor and contributing author.
Edna Ratliff
Edna Ratliff’s entry “A Sorceress, Turtle and Dwarf” won the prize for the November Byliner’s Writers Challenge (2011).
Edward Vidaurre
Born in East L.A., CA in 1973, Raised in Boyle Heights in the projects of Aliso Village, Known to his friends as Barrio Poet, Vidaurre says:” Sometimes the barrio claims us, holds us by our feet like roots in its field of chalk outlines closed off by the screaming yellow tape being pulled from its soul.” Vidaurre is the founder of Pasta, Poetry & Vino and Barrio Poet Productions. He has been nominated for a pushcart prize for his poem, "Lorca in the Barrio" and is working with VAO publising on an on line literary journal called "La Noria" and also is co-editing an anthology called "Twenty" for Newtown, CT through El Zarape Press with Daniel Garcia Ordaz and Katie Hoerth. Vidaurre is the Arts Events Coordinator for the City of Edinburg, TX.
Erika Said Izaguirre
Erika Said Izaguirre is a Mexican writer born and raised in Tampico, Tamaulipas. She attended the University of Chihuahua where she earned a degree in Spanish Literature. Her poetry and short stories have been published in Mexican newspapers, magazines and books, including the anthologies “Overview of Young Mexican Poetry” (2009), “Women's Cry: Rebel Poetry” (2010), "Hell is a caress" (2011), "Poetry of the Chaos" (2011) and “The voice that sprouds: a Tamaulipas poetry retrospective” (2010). She was adopted by Texas State, and has lived in El Paso, McAllen and San Antonio. Her writing is inspired by dreams, music, metaphysics, sociology and love. She’s a Sagittarius, cat lover, eighties fan and is currently working as a cultural journalist for "El Mañana".
Erin Madden
Erin Madden is a graduate student and research and teaching assistant from The University of Wisconsin-Madison. She is currently working on her Doctoral Thesis on Border Health and conditions along the border.
Gene Novogrodsky
Eugene “Gene” Novogrodsky has lived in the Rio Grande Valley in Brownsville for 21 years. He is a co-founder of the Narciso Maritinez Cultural Arts Center Writers Forum in San Benito. He says he has rarely been published; he fears rejection! Instead he loves to read his work in Savory Perks, in the Writers forum, and the Valley International Poetry Festival events. What he enjoys most is reading to several friends, or even strangers in small groups. He is married to his friend and companion, Ruth E. Wagner, who is also a poet and craftsperson. He does write letters to both print and online publications and has been a good friend to Writers of the Rio Grande.
Irma Guadarrama
Professor, Department Chair, Department of Curriculum & Instruction, The University of Texas Pan American, Edinburg, Texas, USA.
Isaac Zepeda
Born and raised in South Texas, Isaac Zepeda is what he calls a observational-transience poet. While entering his junior year at the University of Texas @ San Antonio, he chose to leave school and pursue his writing full-time. The majority of his writing centers on deep-introspection, the human psyche, theological questioning, philosophy, and social commentary. His poetry carries the unceasing desire to celebrate and transcribe the “divine function” -the transient moments of giving or creating meaning.
Jack King
Jack C. King was born in Raymondville, Texas. After finishing high school he pulled a 3 year hitch in the Army, worked 18 months in steel fabrication, 5 1/2 years in building gas pipelines and started college at the age of 29. with an A.A. in architecture and B.A. in humanities, he worked for the Texas Dept. of Health for 10 years, taught high school English for two and art classes for 20. Currently residing near the Rio Grande with his wife and daughter writing short stories and emails to his son in college.
Joe Perez
A former drafting and English teacher, Joe Perez works as a technical writer. Self-taught musicians, Joe and Rosa Perez perform as a vocal and guitar duet they have named "Rumbo al’ Anacua". In a rustic style that speaks of a “voces y guitarras” heritage as it has been preserved among people living north of the Rio Grande, the spirit of Rumbo al’ Anacua keeps the tradition of music performed under backyard anacua trees throughout South Texas.
Juan Manuel Perez
2011-2012 Poet Laureate for the San Antonio Poets Association, Juan Manuel Perez is a native of La Pryor, Texas, and son to second Generation Mexican-Americans. He is also a former Navy/Marine Medic and currently a high school history teacher. Juan served in the First Gulf War earning the title of combat medic and extending his expertise to civilians in Florida in 1992 during the Hurricane Andrew operation. He enjoys reading and writing prose and poetry and poetry about Mexican culture, history, horror, science fiction, and his beloved comic books. He is also the author of 6 chapbooks including BENEATH THE TIGHTS (2006), WITHIN THE FUNNY COLORED PAGES (2006), and the SPIRIT OF MOTECUHZOMA II, 2nd. ed. (2006). The author is also a member of the San Antonio Poets Association, San Angelo Writers' Club, and the Science Fiction Poetry Association.
Julieta Corpus
Julieta Corpus has been writing since the age of eleven. She graduated from UTPA with a Bachelors Degree in Interdisciplinary Studies. She’s been an elementary school teacher for the past eleven years, but has never stopped writing. She’s been published by UTPA”s Gallery Magazine, Tendiendo Puentes, a poetic anthology, Mesqite Review, STCC’s Interstice and Tierra Firme , and in the September 2009 issue of the Mcallen Monitor’s Festiva, Writers Edition. She also organizes poetry readings and is an active member and participant of the Rio Grande Valley Poetry Festival and the San Benito Writers forum. Julieta blames her penchant for the dramatic in her poetry to a life long addiction to Mexican soap operas. And she is a regular contributor to Writers of the Rio Grande
Kamala Platt
Much of the past two decades Dr. Platt has been in south Texas studying and/or teaching in academic departments--English, Bi-Cultural Bilingual Studies, and Women's Studies. Besides Westside, San Antonio, where Platt has established a permanent residence, she lived in New York City for two years, while teaching at Nassau Community College; in Eugene, Oregon, while researching women's environmental justice cultural poetics through University of Oregon's Center for the Study of Women in Society; in Albuquerque's South Valley, while at University of New Mexico, where she received support for further environmental justice research; and in the Rio Grande Valley, where she currently teaches at the University of Texas-Pan American.
Katie Hoerth
A transplant to Rio Grande Valley, Katherine Hoerth is a poet who writes, teaches, and edits in the borderlands. She finds inspiration in the diverse cultural, linguistic, and ecological landscape of southern Texas. Much of her work revisions cultural myths and narratives including: fairy tales, folktales, myths, and Biblical stories. She is currently rewriting the tales of Ovid’s Metamorphoses as though they had taken place in modern day Deep South Texas.
Lisa Truett
Bio Lisa Truett is a Georgia native who spent much of her life in southeast Alabama. She enjoys bringing her subconscious to life with her art. She also enjoys writing and poetry. As a career she works between both worlds by doing computer repair and massage therapy. She becamse a therapist as a foundation for the other modalities she does on a regular basis such as energy therapy. She spents much of her free time with a paintbrush in hand experimenting with her latest inspiration.
Logan
As a writer, Hawkes was the recipient of the 1989 Hearst Writer's Award, has been published in magazines and trade journals and has served as a journalist, bureau chief, and executive editor of newspapers in Texas and served as a syndicated writer for major newspapers across the Southwest. Hawkes is also the video producer for all eleven of Penton Media’s Agriculture magazines and web sites and is editor for the largest and oldest agriculture weekly e-letters, Crop News Weekly. When not living on the Pojoaque Pueblo Reservation North of Santa Fe, he spends his time near the beach on South Padre Island with his partner and wife Grace Rivers, his travel show co-host, and his youngest son who serves the gaming industry as a voice actor.
Marianna Nelson
Marianna Nelson from the Valley Byliners wrote a story for "Tales Told at Midnight along the Rio Grande." Marianna helped keep the project on track with pertinent insights from the Byliner membership.
Meliton Hinojosa, Jr.
Born in El Sauz, Texas to Meliton Hinojosa and Guadalupe Hinojosa in 1948, he has a BA and an MA in education from Texas A & M-Corpus Christi and currently teaches automotive mechanics at San Benito High School.
Paloma Abigail Rodriguez
My name is Paloma Abigail Rodriguez, and I was born in December 28, 1991 in H. Matamoros Tamaulipas Mexico. I am the oldest child and I have six siblings. I live with my mom, my stepdad, my brothers, and my sister. I was raised in Mexico by my mom and my grandparents. I went to elementary school in Mexico, and I am a native Spanish speaker. I came to the United States when I was ten years old. I was blessed to be brought to the United States because I learned the language and many customs and traditions. I am really happy to be where I am and I am proud to be who I am. My Mexican American culture is fantastic, and it is originally from the Valley. I celebrate Seis de Enero Dia de Los Reyes Magos as well as the last Thursday of November Thanksgiving Day. I am also a Christian, and I was saved by Jesus Christ. I am a student at the University of Texas at Brownsville, and I am a Biology major. My career goal is to become a Physician's Assistant in order to use my knowledge to help people's health. I really like writing because is an amazing form of expression, and it just feels good to write.
Joni Montover
Joni Montover is the owner of Paragraphs On Padre Boulevard, in South Padre Island, TX. Paragraphs is a full-service independent bookstore with a comprehensive selection of books to satisfy all readers and budgets. Comfortable Chairs, Free WiFi, Courtyard, and Gameboards are all available for your enjoyment.
Pepe L. Cantinero
Pepe is the son of a Vietnam Vet who moved to the Rio Grande Valley from southern California. He retired from law enforcement and became a history teacher before being laid off after only two years of teaching. He earned a degree in occupational therapy while in the Army, and a BA in history with a minor in Spanish from the University of Southern California through his GI bill. He is twice divorced, has three children, a boy and two girls from his third wife. He is currently enrolled at UT Pan AMerican working on a politcal science degree. That's Pepe!
Poeta Power
Erika Marie Garza-Johnson is La Erika is Poeta Power the poet with too many names. She received her MFA in Creative Writing in 2010 from UTPA. Her thesis is entitled “Poeta Power: The Poetic Jouney of La Erika.” She has been published in Bordersenses, LUNG, Texas Observer and has been featured in La Bloga.
Rachel Ann Vela
Rachel Ann Vela has been writing poetry since her adolescent years. She currently hosts WE NEED WORDS which is a Poetry/open mic night that seeks to celebrate local poets, artists and musicians. WE NEED WORDS happens the last Tuesday of the month at Al Basha on N. 10th St. McAllen TX. She has been in love all her life; her loves are England, poetry, books….and red wine.
Robert Longoria
Robert Longoria is an online web content editor for Film-Work.com, an independent film blogging website based in South Texas. He is also a freelance writer for various medias publications including The Monitor newspaper and The Odessa American.
Rudy H. Garcia
Rudy H. García, from Port Isabel, Texas, has a Master's in Education from the University of Texas at Brownsville and earned a B.A. in psychology from Pan American University in 1976. He is a participant in the Narciso Martínez Cultural Arts Center Writers’ Forum, and is a founder of the Laguna Madre Writers Forum. Rudy has also been featured on the radio program “Themes and Variations.” His poems are published with “Poets of the East Village” in New York and he has been a featured reader for the El Paseo Arts Foundation and is published in numerous other magazines.
Ruth E. Wagner
Ruth E. Wagner was simply an audience member at the Narciso Martinez Cultural Arts Center Writers Forum for several years. Three years ago she began to write poems and tell biographical stories. She is also the partner and wife of Gene Novogrodsky. She has many tales to tell.
Shirley Rickett
Shirley Ann Wilson-Rickett was born in 1934 in Oneida, Tennessee and reared in Kansas City, Missouri. She has been a professional dancer, mother of five, an x-ray technician, and teacher. Rickett won First Prize in the 2011 McAllen Green Living contest, an exercise in ekphrasis, poems written for photos. Poems have appeared in New Letters, Nimrod, Antietam Review, The Kansas City Star, Smartish Pace, and numerous others. Rickett’s current projects include a collection of 30 poems, Repairs While You Wait, and a memoir/genealogy work of prose and poems. She and husband Charles retired to the Rio Grande Valley where Rickett writes, and occasionally works with the Pharr Literacy Project, in Pharr, Texas.
Steve Hathcock
Originally from Sparta, Wisconsin, Steve Hathcock is a South Padre Island historian, having lived on the island since 1980.
Teresa Longoria
I have an incontrovertible sense of humor. There is beauty and magic in everything around me.
Travis Whitehead
Travis M. Whitehead moved to Morelia in 2008 and spent eight months working on a book about the artisans of Michoacan. The book, ''Slices of Life - The Artisans of Michoacan" contains profiles of the artisans in this state west of Mexico City. Travis now lives in Brownsville, Texas and recently found a publisher, Otras Voces Publishing. Travis also writes poetry.
Twitter Bard
Alan Oak, Twitter Bard, is a professional writer, editor, poet and scholar. Currently senior editor and a graduate English student at The University of Texas at Brownsville and Texas Southmost College. Specialties: business writing, fiction, articles, editing, copy writing, copyediting, feminism, academics, English, science fiction, fantasy, poetry.
Vanessa Brown
Vanessa Brown is a local writer and poet in the Rio Grande Valley. Also a contributiing author to this project. Come back often for more entries from Vanessa.
Walter Birdwell
Born in Missouri in 1942, Walter Birdwell graduated from the University of Missouri in 1964 with a BA in creative writing. Immediately enlisted in the US army to avoid the draft and was in the US army from 1964 to 1967. Married Yolanda Garza a month after discharge from the Army and have been married forty-five years. Walter is a progressive political activist and has been for about fifty years and a follower of Pagan religious tradition for about twenty years. Have previously published newspaper articles in The Southern Patriot and the New York City Guardian newspapers (both defunct progressive newspapers) in the 1970s and have recently published articles in The Missouri Chigger, an Ozark area magazine, and the Brownsville Herald. Enjoys writing, sculpture, hunting, fishing, hiking, birdwatching, reading, traveling, and all outdoor activities.