Co-coordinators for the Lorca Latinx Poetry Prize
Francisco Aragón
Francisco Aragón is the son of Nicaraguan immigrants. His books include, After Rubén (Red Hen Press, 2020), Glow of Our Sweat (Scapegoat Press, 2010), and Puerta de Sol (Bilingual Press, 2005). He’s also the editor of, The Wind Shifts: New Latino Poetry (University of Arizona Press, 2007). His work has appeared in over twenty anthologies, as well as various literary journals. A native of San Francisco, CA, he’s on the faculty of the University of Notre Dame’s Institute for Latino Studies (ILS), where he teaches courses in Latinx poetry and creative writing. He directs the ILS’ literary initiative, Letras Latinas. A finalist for Split This Rock’s Freedom Plow Award for poetry and activism, he’s read his work widely, including at universities, bookstores, art galleries, the Dodge Poetry Festival and the Split This Rock Poetry Festival. A CantoMundo fellow, he is also a member of the Macondo Writers’ Workshop. For more information, visit: http://franciscoaragon.net
Spencer Reece
Spencer Reece was born in Hartford, Connecticut. He attended Wesleyan, then received theological degrees from Harvard and Berkeley Divinity, Yale. He is the author of two collections of poetry: The Clerk’s Tale (Houghton Mifflin, 2003) winner of the Bakeless Prize and The Road to Emmaus (FSG, 2014), a long-list nominee for The National Book Award and a short list nominee for The Griffin Prize. He edited Counting Time Like People Count Stars, a bilingual anthology by the abandoned girls of Our Little Roses in San Pedro Sula, Honduras (Tia Chucha Press, 2017). This work was published in tandem with the documentary film, Voices Beyond The Wall: 12 Love Poems from the Murder Capital of the World, available on Amazon Prime, regarding how Reece brought poetry to the only all-girl orphanage in Honduras. Next year will see the publication of two books: The Secret Gospel of Mark: A Poet’s Memoir (Seven Stories Press, 2021) and All The Beauty Still Left: A Poet’s Painted Book of Hours (Turtle Point Press, 2021). In 2012, he founded the Unamuno Author Series, an international author series in Madrid, Spain.
Esperanza Hope Snyder
Esperanza Hope Snyder was born and raised in Bogotá, Colombia. She earned degrees from the College of William and Mary, George Washington University, The Johns Hopkins University, and The University of Manchester in England. Her poems and translations have appeared in Alehouse Press, The Comstock Review, The Gettysburg Review, The Kenyon Review, International Poetry Review, OCHO, Poetry Northwest, Redactions: Poetry & Poetics, and other journals. She is the author of Esperanza and Hope (Sheep Meadow Press, 2018). Former Poet Laureate of Shepherdstown West Virginia, and Poet in Residence at Shepherd University where she founded the Society for Creative Writing, Esperanza is also the founder of Somondoco Press and the founder and director of the Sotto Voce Poetry Festival. Currently, she serves as assistant director of the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference in Sicily. For more information, visit: www.hopemaxwellsnyder.com
Elizabeth Moe,
Executive Director of the Prize
Elizabeth Moe is a cultural programmer, academic researcher, and global communications & marketing professional whose creative bilingual endeavors bridge education, business, and the arts. Committed to the public humanities, Liz is a cofounder of the Unamuno Author Series, Madrid’s first anglophone literary series that has hosted nearly 150 poets to date. In 2019, she organized the series’ groundbreaking festival in Madrid, Salamanca, and Granada, partnering with the Residencia de Estudiantes and the Centro Federico García Lorca to celebrate the inaugural edition of the Lorca Latinx Poetry Prize. Liz earned her B.A. in English and Spanish from Bowdoin College, and her Ph.D. in Spanish Literature & Culture from Rutgers University. Her dissertation, Embodied Lorquian Archives, studied the vanguard historical memory activism of theater makers, poets and performance artists to regenerate Federico García Lorca's dual corpus. Liz was born in Boston, found her home and voice in New York, and her passion in Spain. She has lived in Madrid since 2015.