Emmy Pérez is originally from Santa Ana, California; she earned her BA from the University of Southern California and her MFA from Columbia University. A CantoMundo fellow from 2010 to 2012, she has been an active member of the Macondo Writers’ Workshop founded by Sandra Cisneros for socially engaged writers since 2008. In 2012, she was the recipient of a UT Regents’ Outstanding Teaching Award. Pérez has taught writing at the University of Texas at El Paso and in adult and juvenile detention centers. Currently, she is an associate professor at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, where she teaches in the MFA and undergraduate creative writing programs. She has lived on the U.S-Mexico border since 2000.