The English Department is proud to host the sixth annual Scheingold Lecture in Poetry and Poetics, featuring Javier Zamora and Ricardo Ruiz. The event will be held on Thursday 20th April at 3:30 in HUB 250. There will be a reception and book signing to follow.
The Scheingold Lecture is made possible through the generous support of Lee Scheingold.
Javier Zamora
Javier Zamora was born in La Herradura, El Salvador in 1990. When he was a year old, his father fled El Salvador due to the US-funded Salvadoran Civil War (1980-1992). His mother followed her husband’s footsteps in 1995 when Javier was about to turn five. Zamora was left at the care of his grandparents who helped raise him until he migrated to the US when he was nine. His first poetry collection, Unaccompanied (Copper Canyon Press, September 2017), explores some of these themes.
Zamora was a 2018-2019 Radcliffe Fellow at Harvard University and holds fellowships from CantoMundo, Colgate University (Olive B. O'Connor), MacDowell, Macondo, the National Endowment for the Arts, Poetry Foundation (Ruth Lilly), Stanford University (Stegner), and Yaddo. He is the recipient of a 2017 Lannan Literary Fellowship, the 2017 Narrative Prize, and the 2016 Barnes & Noble Writer for Writers Award for his work in the Undocupoets Campaign.
Learn more about Javier at his website: http://www.javierzamora.net/bio
Ricardo Ruiz
The son of potato factory workers, Ricardo hails from Othello, Washington and his works often draw from his experience as a first-generation Mexican-American. He is passionate about elevating the marginalized voices from rural communities and takes pride in being a conduit for cultural connection. His own struggles straddling cultures provide insight to the difficulties of the Mexican migrant worker and their families.
Ricardo holds an Associates Degree in Business and Accounting from Big Bend Community College where he was recognized as Student of the year in both Business and Economics and English Composition. He also holds a Bachelors of Art in English: Creative Writing from the University of Washington and is an Army Veteran. While in the military Ricardo was recognized as Distinguished Honor Graduate and Distinguished Leader during his Advanced Leadership Course.
Learn more about Ricardo at his website: https://www.poetruiz.com/about and in the College of Arts & Sciences’ Perspectives story from September 2022: https://artsci.washington.edu/news/2022-08/immigrant-stories-shared-through-poetry