A product of an ethnically diverse family, I have lived most of my life in the Río Grande Valley of deep South Texas, where I divide my time between writing, editing, and teaching at the University of Texas Pan American. The Texas Institute of Letters recently awarded my book Flower, Song, Dance: Aztec and Mayan Poetry the Soeurette Diehl Fraser Award for Best Translation. I am the author of several other books, among them Shattering and Bricolage, Creature Feature, and The Seed: Stories from the River’s Edge. My research into local legends has been featured on the Discovery and Animal Planet channels as part of the show Monsters and Mysteries in America. Additionally, my work has been published or is forthcoming in various periodicals, including Rattle, Translation Review, Eye to the Telescope, Concho River Review, Interstice, BorderSenses, Illya’s Honey, James Gunn’s Ad Astra, 2015 Texas Poetry Calendar and Red River Review.