Benjamin Alire Sáenz

Benjamin Alire Sáenz (born August 16, 1954) is an award-winning American poet, novelist, writer of children's books and artist.  He lives and works in El Paso, Texas.

He was born at Old Picacho, New Mexico, the fourth of seven children, and was raised on a small farm near Mesilla, New Mexico. He graduated from Las Cruces High School in 1972. That fall, he entered St. Thomas Seminary in Denver, Colorado where he received a B.A. degree in Humanities and Philosophy in 1977. He studied Theology at the University of Louvain in Leuven, Belgium from 1977 to 1981. He was a priest for a few years in El Paso, Texas before leaving the order.

In 1985, he returned to school, and studied English and Creative Writing at the University of Texas at El Paso where he earned an M.A. degree in Creative Writing. He then spent a year at the University of Iowa as a PhD student in American Literature. A year later, he was awarded a Wallace E. Stegner fellowship. While at Stanford University under the guidance of Denise Levertov, he completed his first book of poems, Calendar of Dust, which won an American Book Award in 1992. He entered the Ph.D. program at Stanford and continued his studies for two more years. Before completing his Ph.D., he moved back to the border and began teaching at the University of Texas at El Paso in the bilingual MFA program which he retired from in 2022.  It was announced that Wittliff Collections acquired his complete archive.

In 2005, he curated a show of photographs by Julian Cardona.  

In The Book of What Remains (Copper Canyon Press, 2010), his fifth book of poems, he writes to the core truth of life's ever-shifting memories. Set along the Mexican border, the contrast between the desert's austere beauty and the brutality of border politics mirrors humanity's capacity for both generosity and cruelty.

In 2010, he and Daniel Chacón began hosting a local literary radio show, Words on a Wire, out of El Paso, Texas that quickly became one of the most important radio programs and podcasts about writers and books in North America.  You can hear these and other shows on KTEP.

Sáenz has been awarded the Lambda Literary Award and Stonewall Book Award and has talked about growing up and self expression in various ways.  His book Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe has been widely regarded and accepted as a seminal young adult novel in the queer literary canon and has received a movie adaptation.

https://www.latinousa.org/2022/01/21/benjaminaliresaenz/

In 2022 Sáenz had an interview at Townsend Harris High School Library for a LGBTQ+ author talk hosted by the NYC Department of Education.  He delved into how the need to label oneself, such as with gender and sexuality, can be limiting and detrimental. He chooses to not label himself as “queer” because for him that word still contains all of the negative meaning it had in his youth. However, if others are comfortable with that label for themselves, that is also completely acceptable, he said. He went on to say that while one may feel tempted to draw lines to help understand who one is, beyond that, they are nothing but limiting and that, “Young people need books that tell them there is still love in the world.”

Sáenz believes in the power of telling LGBTQ+ stories and sharing them with youth. Writing should be about what’s possible, including queer tragedy and queer joy. In that setting, the stories Sáenz writes are a sort of hopeful realism. 

https://www.npr.org/2013/02/20/172495550/discovering-sexuality-through-teen-lit

My Story: Benjamin Alire Sáenz on finding his true self

“You find yourself in writing a book.”

On April 8, 2023 he gave a TEDxElPaso talk about how the border shaped his identity and creative journey.  Length 17:59

The Last Meditation on Living in the Desert

by Benjamin Alire Sáenz

I was born in the desert.

I want to die in the desert.

I want to die in the middle of the summer.

At ten o’clock in the morning.

Preferably on the hottest day of the year.

I want everyone who comes to my funeral to keep repeating

Goddamnit it’s hot. This will make me smile.

If I am not allowed to smile after I’m dead

then I want to live forever.

But only if I can continue living in the desert.

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LGBTQ+ Resources

Forgotten Gay El Paso: The Bars

Borderland Rainbow Center

Sun City Pride

Mountain Star Pride

PFLAG El Paso

The Purple Pages

Alliance of Border Collaboratives

Diversity and Resiliency Institute of El Paso

Public Health

Some Local Events

Outfest

Destination El Paso

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You can learn more at:

Benjamin Alire Sáenz Website

El Paso Public Library Catalogue Search

Border Heritage Center

Courtesy of the El Paso Public Library, Border Heritage Center,El Paso Vertical Files - Writers - SA-SH

Resources

Texas Cultural Trust - Benjamin Alire Sáenz

Texas Monthly - Benjamin Alire Sáenz

Wiki

Pima Library Interview

REFORMA Interview with Benjamin Alire Sáenz

Publisher's Weekly Interview

The El Paso Public Library turns 130!!! - Celebration Schedule and Timeline

The El Paso Public Library proudly invites you to celebrate with us its 130th anniversary!!! The staff at the Border Heritage Center is excited to announce the Open House events that will take place at various library branches, beginning with the Westside Library tomorrow Wednesday, September 25, 2024, at 11:00 am. Celebrations will continue through Wednesday, December 11, 2024 (see schedule below). Stop by for giveaways and refreshments! See you there!!!

El Paso Public Library Timeline

Sergio Troncoso

 Sergio Troncoso (born 1961) often writes about the United States-Mexico border, working-class immigrants, families and fatherhood, crossing cultural, psychological, and philosophical borders, and the border beyond the border.

Troncoso teaches at the Yale Writers’ Workshop in New Haven, Connecticut. A past president of the Texas Institute of Letters, he has also served as a judge for the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction and the New Letters Literary Awards in the Essay category. His work has appeared in Pleiades, Texas Highways, CNN Opinion, Houston Chronicle, Other Voices, New Letters, Yale Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, and Texas Monthly.

The son of Mexican immigrants, Troncoso was born and grew up on the east side of El Paso, Texas in rural Ysleta. During their first years in Texas, his family lived with kerosene lamps and stoves and an outhouse in the backyard. He attended Ysleta High School and became editor of the school newspaper. (His paternal grandfather was Santiago Troncoso, editor and publisher of El Día, the first daily newspaper in Juárez, Mexico.)

In Ysleta, Texas, Pati visits La Tapatia, a restaurant serving border-influenced tortilla, tamales and tacos since 1950. She sits down with acclaimed author, Sergio Troncoso – known for his many books and essays on border life – to discuss what it’s like to live in the middle of two cultures. Length 4:05 Sergio Troncoso on Border Life

A Fulbright scholar, Troncoso was inducted into the Hispanic Scholarship Fund’s Alumni Hall of Fame, Texas Institute of Letters, and Texas Literary Hall of Fame. He is also a member of PEN America, a writers’ organization protecting free expression and celebrating literature, and the Authors Guild, the nation’s oldest and largest professional organization of writers. He was named a Fellow of the Texas Institute of Letters, the first Mexican American writer to receive this distinction.

Among the numerous literary awards Troncoso has won are the Kay Cattarulla Award for Best Short Story, Premio Aztlan Literary Prize, Gold Medal for Best Novel-Adventure or Drama from International Latino Book Awards, Bronze Award for Anthologies from Independent Publisher Book Awards, Gold Medal for Best Collection of Short Stories from International Latino Book Awards, Southwest Book Award, Bronze Award for Essays from ForeWord Reviews, and the Silver Award for Multicultural Adult Fiction from ForeWord Reviews.

His literary papers are archived at The Wittliff Collections in San Marcos, Texas.

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The El Paso City Council voted unanimously to rename the public library branch in Ysleta as the Sergio Troncoso Branch Library. Later the author established the annual Troncoso Reading Prizes for middle school and high school students in Ysleta.

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You can learn more at:

Sergio Troncoso Website

El Paso Public Library Catalogue Search

Border Heritage Center

Courtesy of the El Paso Public Library, Border Heritage Center, El Paso Vertical Files - Writers - Troncoso, Sergio 

Resources

El Pasoan Sergio Troncoso to be inducted into Texas Literary Hall of Fame

Cormac McCarthy, Sergio Troncoso selected to Texas Literary Hall of Fame; other El Paso news

Q&A with El Paso Matters Book Club author Sergio Troncoso

IndieBound - Sergio Troncoso

Sergio Troncoso Wiki

Rosa Guerrero

Rosa Ramirez Guerrero (born November 14, 1934) was born and raised in El Paso, Texas. She is an artist, educator, dance historian, and humanitarian. Her efforts have enhanced her commitment in promoting cultural awareness around the United States. She has also taught for EPISD, The El Paso Community College and at The University of Texas at El Paso. Mrs. Guerrero was the first of seven children in her family to graduate and earn her BA and MA from Texas Western College, now the University of Texas at El Paso.

Mrs. Guerrero founded and became the artistic director of the International Folklorico Dance Group.  Her film “Tapestry,” based upon creating cultural harmony and understanding, was honored with a national award for documentary filmmaking.  She was awarded a lifetime membership with the Texas PTA and was the first Hispanic woman in El Paso to have a school, Rosa Guerrero Elementary, named in her honor.

 

She has been honored with many local, national, and international honors for her efforts as a humanitarian, which includes being a Distinguished Alumni of The University of Texas at El Paso, Inductee into the Texas Women’s Hall of Fame, the Valley Forge Freedoms Foundation Award, the LULAC Arts and Humanities Award, the NEA Human Civil Rights George T. Sanchez Award, and the Mexican Consulate OHTLI Award for her work with Mexican Americans and other minorities.

Rosa Guerrero wanted to be a teacher since the third grade.  Her own teachers in the early 1940’s and 1950’s were not kind and did not understand her cultural background.  She, like thousands of others, was punished for speaking Spanish in school.  This was the reason she became an educator and swore to never punish her students for their racial and cultural differences.

Rosa Guerrero has been called “a tapestry of many cultures whose mission is to share this tapestry of cultural diversity, and how it is woven, with all people.”  She continues her mission of love, peace, and cultural understanding to this day as an educational consultant giving presentations and lectures.

You can learn more at:  

Rosa Guerrero Website

El Paso Public Library Catalogue Search

Border Heritage Center

Courtesy of the El Paso Public Library,Border Heritage Center, Citizen Vertical Files, Guerrero, Rosa

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If you are interested in free dance classes, residents can learn to dance bachata, cumbia and salsa with free lessons from the Live Active El Paso Program.

Learn to dance, keep fit with free Baila El Paso! program

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Resources

Texas Archive - Rosa Guerrero

EPCC LibGuide - Borderlands: Rosa Guerrero: Cultural Dynamo 27 (2009-2010)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosa_Ramirez_Guerrero

National Hispanic Heritage Month 2024

National Hispanic Heritage Month (NHHM)
September 15 - October 15