William Archila was born in Santa Ana, El Salvador in 1968. At the age of twelve, he fled a civil war that tore his country apart and immigrated to the United States in 1980. He eventually became an English teacher and earned his MFA in poetry from the University of Oregon. His poems have appeared in Agni, Blue Mesa Review, Crab Orchard Review, The Georgia Review, The Los Angeles Review, Notre Dame Review, Poetry International and Puerto del Sol among others. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife. His first book The Art of Exile won the Emerging Writer Fellowship Award from the Writer's Center.