Vanessa Angélica Villarreal

Vanessa Angélica Villarreal earned a doctorate in English literature and creative writing from the University of Southern California. 

Villarreal is the author of the essay collection Magical/Realism: Essays on Music, Memory, Fantasy, and Borders (Tiny Reparations Books, 2024), long-listed for the National Book Award and National Book Critics Circle Award, and the poetry collection Beast Meridian (Noemi Press, 2017), the recipient of a 2019 Whiting Award, a Kate Tufts Discovery Award nomination, and winner of the John A. Robertson Award for Best First Book of Poetry from the Texas Institute of Letters. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, New York Magazine’s The Cut, Harper’s Bazaar, Oxford American, Paris Review, Poetry magazine, and elsewhere.

The recipient of a 2021 National Endowment for the Arts fellowship, Villarreal served as Guest Editor of the Poem-a-Day series in October 2023.