Curiel, a San Francisco native and a specialist in Chicano and Latino studies, is the winner of the 2012 Philip Levine Prize for her forthcoming collection, Mexican Jenny and Other Poems, to be published this fall. The prize takes its name from the Poet Laureate of the United States 2011-2012. Levine is a Pulitzer Prize and two-time National Book Award winner renowned for his poems about working class Detroit.
Curiel’s first book of poetry, Speak to Me from Dreams, appeared in 1989. Her early writing career produced two chapbooks, Nocturno and Vocabulary of the Dead. In 2010-2012 she took a fellowship with CantoMundo, the national organization for Latino poets.
A graduate of Mills College and Stanford University, Curiel earned a Ph.D. from the University of California, Santa Cruz. She is an HSU professor in the Departments of Critical Race, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and in English. She teaches creative writing, American literature and Chicano/Latino and feminist studies.
Her April 18 reading is open to the public and refreshments will be served.