Space is my Barrio:

Join us for a presentation and reading by award-winning author, Juan Manuel Pérez.  His poetry topics will include Chicano and Chicana futurismo, migrant fieldwork, Indigenous and Indigenous futurism, speculative writing, horror, cryptozoology, politics, food, family, and military life.  

Juan Manuel Pérez, a Mexican-American poet of Indigenous descent and the Poet Laureate for Corpus Christi, Texas (2019-2020), is the author of numerous poetry books including the award-wining, poetic-memoir, Thirty Years Ago: Life And The First Gulf War (2023) and the Mexican-American Barrio Horror Novel-In-Verse, La Santa Madre Tamalera (2023). 

Juan, a former migrant worker, is also the 2021 Horror Authors Guild’s Inaugural Lifetime Achievement Award winner and a recipient of a 2021 Horror Writers Association Diversity Grant. This poet’s credits also include a Regal Summit Book Award (2024), two Aphelion’s Best Poetry Of The Year Listings (2023, 2024), two Pushcart Prize Nominations (2017, 2023), three Elgin Book Award Nominations (2021, 2022, 2023), four Rhysling Award Nominations (2011, 2012, 2013, 2020), four Dwarf Star Award Nominations (2012, 2020, 2021, 2022) with one Honorable Mention win in 2022, and one H.E.R.O.I.C. People’s Choice Award Nomination (2024).