Juan Felipe Herrera was the U.S. Poet Laureate from 2015 to 2017. His biography lists twenty-one distinguished awards including the National Book Critics Circle award for poetry and. L.A. Times Robert Kirsch Award for Lifetime Achievement. He is the author of thirty books including collections of poetry, prose, short stories, young adult novels and picture books for children. He served as Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets from 2011 to 2016.

Herrera is the son of migrant farmers and had an itinerant youth in the Central Valley of California. He began drawing cartoons while in middle school, and by high school was playing folk music by Bob Dylan and Woody Guthrie. He holds a masters degree in Social Anthropology from Stanford, and an MFA from the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Over the past three decades, he has founded a number of performance ensembles, and has taught poetry, art, and performance in community art galleries and correctional facilities. He has taught at the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop and served as chair of the Chicano and Latin American Studies Department at CSU-Fresno.

His work, which includes video, photography, theater, poetry, prose, and performance, has made Herrera a leading voice on the Mexican American experience.