Emmy Pérez

Emmy Pérez is a Chicanx poet and writer originally from Santa Ana, California, United States. She was a recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Poetry Fellowship in 2017. She has lived in the borderlands of Texas since 2000, where she has taught creative writing in college and MFA programs, as well as in detention facilities and as part of social justice projects. Her latest collective is Poets Against the Border Wall. She was also a fellow (2010–12) and organizing committee member of CantoMundo (2018–19) and is a long-time member of Macondo Writers Workshop.

She is best known for her collections, With the River on Our Face and Solstice. Previously, she received the James D. Phelan Literary Award from the San Francisco Foundation. She began her stewardship in March 2020.

Biography and reception She graduated from University of Southern California with an undergraduate degree, and received her MFA from Columbia University. where she is a full professor. She is also the associate director for the Center of Mexican Studies.

She has been the recipient of many prestigious awards and fellowships, including, but not limited to: the New York Foundation for the Arts, the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, and the Ucross Foundation.