Our Chair’s Welcome

El Paso-Juarez is a locale where the Americas meet. Our university is located in the center of a unique ecotone where elements of U.S. culture connect and mix with elements of Mexican culture creating a vibrant social and political environment that enriches the intellectual and imaginative lives of our students. Taking advantage of our geographic and cultural space, we have developed a unique graduate Creative Writing Program that is bilingual in nature and seeks to include the many literary traditions of the Americas as the foundation for our students’ literary development. Our program seeks to bring together talented young writers from all over the Americas in order to be a catalyst in the production of a future literature that will remind us that we all speak a common language.

Bienvenida de nuestro Jefe de Departamento

La región de El Paso-Juarez es el punto de encuentro de las Américas. Nuestra universidad está ubicada en el centro de una singular zona de contacto donde los elementos de la cultura de los Estados Unidos se mezclan con los elementos de la cultura de México, creando un vibrante ambiente cultural y político que enriquece la vida intelectual y la imaginación de nuestros estudiantes. Aprovechando las ventajas de nuestro espacio geográfico y cultural, hemos creado un singular Programa de Creación Literaria bilingüe cuya meta es incluir las diversas tradiciones de las Américas como la base del desarrollo literario de nuestros estudiantes. Nuestro programa aspira ser el catalizador donde los nuevos escritores de las Américas escriban la literatura del futuro que nos recuerde que hablamos una misma lengua.

Benjamín Sáenz featured on PBS Art Beat

Benjamin Sáenz has been recognized as one of the most influential voices in the United States, because of his admirable group of novels, short stories, and poems that he continues writing, as well as for his moving and original children books. His appearance as a featured artist on PBS Art Beat is a proof of his importance in literature.

Undocumentaries

In the words of Anne Waldman — one of the most celebrated American poets and activists—, “Rosa Alcalá’s imagination and language disarmingly penetrate and extend these powerful devices and activating signals. The face we see is hers and our culture’s own.”

Summa caligramática

A fines de 2009, José de Piérola entregó su última novela, publicada por la Editorial Norma en el Perú. El título: Summa Caligramática. Pocas veces, en la literatura hispanoamericana, se ha hecho un retrato tan intenso —en ocasiones compasivo, a ratos inclemente— de la psicología torturada de un artista y de los estragos que el exceso de poder, incluso en nombre del amor, causa en los seres humanos.

Insides She Swallowed

In September 2009, West End Press published this first book of poetry by Sasha Pimentel Chacón. Delicate and passionate, the verses have both mind and body, myth and reality, culture and nature, to gather together —in Levi-Strauss’s words— the raw and the cooked of our experiences in order to, perhaps, deepen the knowledge of our own lives.

Latest News

Rio Grande Review release party.

Rio Grande Review. The Fall 2011. Apocalypse Issue release party was held on December 9th, 2011. 7:00 p.m. at The Percolator. El Paso, Texas.

Rio Grande Review, our student-run literary journal, has a new web site: riograndereview.com.

New radio shows of Words on a Wire!!!

Listen to the new shows of program Words on a Wire with Benjamin Alire Sáenz and Daniel Chacón on KTEP 88.5 FM! Sundays, 11:30 a.m.! Click here to be taken to KTEP or visit wordsonawire- blog to listen podcastings. You can also visit Media section on the left menu to listen to the shows

Authors Sergio Troncoso and Aaron Michael Morales were at UTEP.

UTEP Department of Creative Writing and Friends of the UTEP Library presented authors Sergio Troncoso and Aaron Michael Morales. Friday. On November 4th. 7:30 p.m. Quinn Hall. 212. (UTEP Campus)

Rosa Alcalá read at Harvard University.

UTEP Creative Writing professor Rosa Alcalá read at Harvard University in an event called Latino/ A Poetry Now. (1350 Massachusetts Ave. Cambridge, MA. Thompson Room, Barker Center, 12 Quincy Street. On Tue., Nov. 8, 2011, 6 – 7:15 p.m). It also featured poets Eduardo C. Corral & Aracelis Girmay. It was co-sponsored by Letras Latinas, the literary program of the Institute for Latino Studies at the University of Notre Dame, the Poetry Society of America, and the Woodberry Poetry Room.

MFA Graduate student won short story prize at Mexico.

MFA candidate Sylvia Aguilar Zéleny got the third place in the short story contest XXV Concurso de Prosa y Poesía: Timón de Oro 2011. It was awarded for her short story ``Sueño con la bahía´´ by Asociación de la Heróica Escuela Naval Militar, A.C. from México.

José de Piérola spoke at NMSU.

José de Piérola read an excerpt from one of his novels at New Mexico State University (NMSU), in Las Cruces, on Friday, October 21, at 106 Hardman Hall. In addition to the reading, he spoke about his experience as a Latin American novelist living in the USA. The event was sponsored by the NMSU English Department, Las Cruces Organization for the Arts (LOLA), the Southwest Border Cultures Institute and the Louletia B. Valentine Endowment.

Buttered Toast Readings.

Special Guest Series + Dishonest Mailman presented a poetry reading with Farid Matuk and Blake Nemec, MFA (UTEP) candidate. It took place at Rubin Gallery at UTEP.Friday, October 14th, 2011. 7:00 p.m. It was sponsored by the Department of Chicano Studies, Department of Creative Writing, Department of English, and the College of Liberal Arts.

Luis Arturo Ramos and Rubén Varona attended International Conference on Hispanic Crime Fiction.

UTEP Creative Writing professor, Luis Arturo Ramos and Ruben Varona, Graduate student, were keynote speakers at the International Conference on Hispanic Crime Fiction in Honor of Dr. Genaro J. Pérez, which took place on Texas Tech University at Lubbock, Texas, from september 29, 30 to october 01, 2011.

Mexican Writer, Yuri Herrera, visited UTEP.

Yuri Herrera, former UTEP student at the Creative Writing program, author of two novels Trabajos del reino and Señales que precederán al fin del mundo, visited UTEP on September 26 th, 2011 and had a talk with Jose de Pierola and Aileen El-Kadi.

Literature in Bravo Fall event.

Writers and translators Jerome Rothenberg and Myriam Moscona gave a poetry reading on September 7 th, 2011, at the Blumberg Auditorium in UTEP´s Library.

Sasha Pimentel won 2011 American Book Award.

UTEP professor of the Creative Writing program Sasha Pimentel Chacón was the recipient of the 2011 Before Columbus Foundation - American Book Award given for her poetry collection Insides She Swallowed (West End Press).