A Reading & Conversation With Ana Castillo

Ana Castillo is a poet, essayist, editor, activist, novelist, and translator. She is the author of the children’s book My Daughter, My Son, The Eagle, The Dove, and the play Psst…: I Have Something to Tell You, Mi Amor. Castillo is also the editor of La Tolteca, a journal devoted to “promoting the advancement of a world without borders and censorship,” and has edited or helped edit collections such as The Sexuality of Latinas, Recent Chicano Poetry: Neueste Chicano-Lyrik, and Goddess of the Americas. In My Book of the Dead: New Poems (High Road Books), she returns to her first literary love, poetry, to address the last decade’s social and political upheaval. She tackles the environmental crisis, COVID-19, systemic racism and violence, children in detention camps, and the Trump presidency. The collection also includes drawings by Castillo created over the past five years, and they further showcase her connection to her work as both a writer and a visual artist.

Michael Torres is a poet and educator. After spending his adolescence as a graffiti artist, his debut collection of poems, An Incomplete List of Names (Beacon Press, 2020), was selected by Raquel Salas Rivera for the National Poetry Series. Currently, he’s an assistant professor in the MFA program at Minnesota State University, Mankato, and a teaching artist with the Minnesota Prison Writing Workshop.