ire’ne lara silva, the 2023 Texas Poet Laureate, is the author of three chapbooks: ani’mal, INDíGENA and Enduring Azucares (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2015). Her two full length poetry collections, furia (Mouthfeel Press, 2010) and Blood Sugar Canto (Saddle Road Press, 2016) were finalists for the International Latino Book Award in Poetry. Her most recent poetry collection, CUICACALLI/House of Song (Saddle Road Press, 2019), was a finalist for the Texas Institute of Letters Poetry Prize. Her first collection of short stories, flesh to bone, was published by Aunt Lute Press in 2013. flesh to bone received the 2013 Premio Aztlan, placed second for the 2014 TEJAS NACCS FOCO Award in Fiction, and was a Finalist for Foreword Review’s Book of the Year Award in Multicultural Fiction. flesh to bone was also selected as the May 2014 Book of the Month for the National Latino Book Club/Las Comadres.
In 2020, ire’ne was inducted as a member of the Texas Institute of Letters. She is the recipient of a 2021 Tasajillo Writers Grant, a 2017 National Association of Latino Arts and Cultures Fund for the Arts Fund for the Arts Grant, the 2014 final Alfredo Cisneros del Moral Award, the 2013 Fiction Finalist for A Room of Her Own Foundation’s (AROHO) Gift of Freedom, and the 2008 Gloria Anzaldua Milagro Award. She is also a member of the Macondo workshop and an Inaugural Cantomundo Fellow. Most recently, ire’ne was awarded the 2021 Texas Institute of Letters Shrake Award for Best Short Nonfiction. From 2004 to 2008, she was the Executive Coordinator for the Macondo Writing Workshop/Macondo Foundation. She and Moises S. L. Lara were co-coordinators for the Flor De Nopal Literary Festival (2011-2015).
ire’ne’s poetry, short stories and essays have appeared in more than seventy journals and anthologies, including Acentos Review, The New York Times, Alaska Quarterly Review, Pleiades, The Rumpus, Apogee, and Texas Highways Magazine.
ire’ne and Dan Vera are the co-editors of IMANIMAN: Poets Writing on the Anzalduan Borderlands, an anthology of essays, poetry and hybrids of the two, published by Aunt Lute Books in 2017. ire’ne is currently a Writer at Large for Texas Highways Magazine. In addition to the TIL Shrake Award, her work with Texas Highways Magazine has also won a Gold Prize for Historical Feature with the International Regional Magazine Association and been twice a finalist for National City and Regional Magazine Association Awards. silva is working on a second collection of short stories titled, the light of your body.
