Featured Writer: José Olivarez
The 2019 City Tech Literary Arts Festival featured writer will be: JOSÉ OLIVAREZ
José Olivarez is the son of Mexican immigrants. His debut book of poems, Citizen Illegal, was just announced as a finalist for the 2019 PEN America Literary Award. Citizen Illegal was awarded the 2018 Chicago Review of Books Poetry Prize, and was named a top book of 2018 by NPR and the New York Public Library. His work has been featured in The New York Times, The Paris Review, and elsewhere. https://joseolivarez.com/
We have also featured Jose Olivarez’s work in the following posts on this site:
This post features (citizen) (illegal), the title poem of José Olivarez’s recent book Citizen Illegal.
This post features two poems by Olivarez, “A Mexican Dreams of Heaven” and “My Family Never Finished Migrating, We Just Stopped” and a link to a fall 2018 New York Times interview with Olivarez and two other writers discussing immigration and mental health.
This post features a fall 2018 essay by Olivarez in the Medium: “Maybe Poetry Could Save My Life.”Here, he discusses how his move toward poetry grew out of an awareness of how poetry and language could shape how histories are told, how poetry gave him the power to offer stories people his age wanted to hear, and how becoming a mentor to other young writers gave his work meaning.
This post features a recent interview with José Olivarez in the Paris Review:
José Olivarez is also a master teacher. Some of the writing prompts and teaching activities he developed are available on the the blog of the Young Chicago Authors: https://youngchicagoauthors.org/blog/tag/National_Poetry_Month/
You can also follow @_joseolivarez on Twitter!
