April 2
 John Olivares Espinoza
Bilingual Review Press


April 9
Charles Jensen

John Olivares Espinoza was born in Indio, Calif., in 1978 and derives his poetic inspiration through his days working as a gardener with his family. He holds degrees in creative writing from the University of California at Riverside and Arizona State University, where he was a Paul and Daisy Soros New American Fellow. He has published two chapbooks, Aluminum Times (Davis: Swan Scythe Press, 2002) and Gardeners of Eden (Berkeley: Chicano Chapbook Series, 2000). His full-length collection of poetry, The Date Fruit Elegies, is forthcoming from Bilingual Review Press. He teaches English literature at the National Hispanic University in San Jose, Calif.

Presented as part of Arte es Amor, an annual celebration of Latino arts and culture throughout Tempe and ASU.

 Bilingual Review Press publishes literary works, scholarship and art books by or about United States Hispanics under the name Bilingual Press/Editorial Bilingüe. It also produces the literary/scholarly journal Bilingual Review, distribute more than 1,000 titles by other presses and is the exclusive distributor of books by Latin American Literary Review Press.
 

Charles Jensen is the assistant director of the Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing at Arizona State University. He is the author of three chapbooks, including Living Things and The Strange Case of Maribel Dixon. In 2007 he received an Artist’s Project Grant from the Arizona Commission on the Arts. His poetry has appeared in Bloom, The Journal, New England Review, spork and West Branch. He is the founding editor of the online poetry magazine LOCUSPOINT, which explores creative work on a city-by-city basis.

April 16
Hershman John
April 23
Patricia Colleen Murphy
April 30
James Sallis

Hershman John is both a poet and a short fiction writer. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree in English and his Masters of Fine Arts in Creative Writing, both from Arizona State University. He is a full-time faculty member at Phoenix College. His works have been widely published: Arizona Highways, Flyway-A Literary Review, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Journal of Navajo Education, Puerto del Sol, Wicazo Sa Review, O Taste and See: Food Poems, Family Matters: Poems of our Families … . The University of Arizona Press published his first collection of poems entitled, I Swallow Turquoise for Courage.

 

 Patricia Coleen Murphy earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in English and French from Miami University and a Masters of Fine Arts in Poetry from Arizona State University. Her poems have appeared in more than 20 literary journals, including The Iowa Review, Quarterly West and American Poetry Review. Her poems have received awards from the Associated Writers and Writing Programs and the Academy of American Poets, Glimmer Train Press and The Southern California Review. Her manuscript Inevitable Flow has been a finalist at Carnegie Mellon Press and Alice James Books.

 

 James Sallis has published books of poetry, 14 novels, the definitive biography of Chester Himes, a translation of Raymond Queneau's novel Saint Glinglin and multiple volumes of short stories, essays and musicology. His novel Drive is in pre-production with Universal Studios; the six Lew Griffin novels are in development. Sallis teaches at Phoenix College, is on the faculty at Otis College in Los Angeles and, in his spare time, plays guitar, banjo, Dobro and mandolin with Three-Legged Dog, a trio of multi-instrumentalists playing oldtime, bluegrass, gospel, blues and vintage country. He received a lifetime achievement award from Bouchercon, the international mystery convention, in October of 2006.