Biography
Tim Z. Hernandez is an award winning author and performance artist. His debut collection of poetry, Skin Tax (Heyday Books, 2004) received the 2006 American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation, the James Duval Phelan Award from the San Francisco Foundation, and the Zora Neal Hurston Award for writers of color dedicated to their communities. His debut novel, Breathing, In Dust (Texas Tech University Press, 2010) was recently featured on NPR’s All Things Considered, and went on to receive the 2010 Premio Aztlán Prize in Fiction from the National Hispanic Cultural Center in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Most recently, in 2011 the Poetry Society of America named him one of sixteen New American Poets.
As a performer he has collaborated with Grammy Award winning classical composer Eugene Freisen, Latin jazz recording artists the B-Side Players, and he recently recorded a track with Latin hip-hop band, 40 Watt Hype. Since 2007 he has worked with Poets & Writers Inc. and the California Center for the Book at UCLA teaching poetry, fiction, and non-fiction workshops across the west coast. He is also active as a writer in the schools (California and Colorado) with focus on rural, under-served communities with high rates of dropouts, violence, and teen pregnancy. He is a frequent guest artist at Universities, cultural institutions, and literary centers across the United States, and his performances have been featured in prestigious venues such as New York City’s Dixon Experimental Theater, the Getty Center in Los Angeles, Stanford University, and the Denver Center for the Performing Arts.
Hernandez has two collections of poetry forthcoming; Natural Takeover of Small Things (University of Arizona Press) is due out in spring of 2013, and Culture of Flow (Monkey Puzzle Press) is due out in winter of 2012. He holds a B.A. from Naropa University and an M.F.A. in Writing & Literature from Bennington College in Vermont. He currently lives in Colorado and works for the state affiliate of the National Library of Congress.
