Director: Joseph Rios

Joseph Rios is the City of Fresno Poet Laureate and a Stegner Fellow at Stanford University. He is the author of Shadowboxing: Poems & Impersonations (Omnidawn, 2017), winner of a 2018 American Book Award. His poems can be found at The Rumpus, Poem-a-Day, Huizache, The San Francisco Chronicle, and on the Metro in Los Angeles. Rios is the recipient of several scholarships and fellowships from Community of Writers, CantoMundo, Letras Latinas, and the California Arts Council. In 2024, it was announced that Rios was awarded a prestigious Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellowship: he plans to use the $50,000 prize to produce a multimedia package for any K-12 and college educator to teach a unit on poetry centered around a new anthology by contemporary Fresno poets. Listen to the August 26th interview with KVPR here.

Staff

Juan Luis Guzmán (he/him/el), a poet, professor, and literary/performing arts director, earned an M.F.A. in creative writing from Fresno State University. He has completed fellowships from Macondo Writers Workshop and CantoMundo, and his work has appeared in The Georgia Review, Huizache, PANK, and The Rumpus, among other journals, as well as the Letras Latinas Blog and Poet’s Quarterly. Guzman is the vice chairman of the Selma Arts Council and served as the second director of LitHop from 2017-2019. The former co-director for CantoMundo, Guzmán is a professor of English at Fresno City College.

Von Torres (he/him/his) was born in Fresno, California and raised in Clovis, California with parents who immigrated from the Philippines. He is a tenured professor at Clovis Community College in the English & Library Department and is believed to currently be one of two Filipino American men who are tenured and teach English in the entire California community college system. In addition, he is affiliated faculty in Ethnic Studies / Asian American Studies at the college. He started as a student of poetry at Fresno City College in 2008 and earned his B.A. (2011) and M.A. (2014) in English: Creative Writing from San Francisco State University. His poetry has appeared in TAYO Literary Magazine and VERSES TYPHOON YOLANDA: A Storm of Filipino Poets. He has self-published two chapbooks: HELLO my name is and "F" Sounds. He co-wrote four entries in the SAGE Encyclopedia of Filipina/x/o American Studies: Arts & Humanities Introduction, Bahala Na, Poetry, and Spoken Word. He served as the third director of LitHop from 2021-2022.

Arien Alana Reed, M.F.A., a pushcart nominee, is an award-winning artist, muralist, novelist, and poet. He also volunteers on the board of Trans-E-Motion, a transgender nonprofit serving California’s Central Valley. His unpublished poetry collections have been finalists for the Kore Press, Grayson Books, Press 53, and Inlandia poetry prizes, and his poetic or artistic shenanigans have found their way into New South, Oberon, Florida Review, Sonora Review, High Shelf Press, J Mane Gallery, Allegory Ridge, and others. His poetic lunacy can be witnessed on Instagram at @arienreedwriting and his squeaky descent into artistic anarchy can be observed at @arienreedart