Francisco Aragón
Mililani, HI
Poetry & Nonfiction
Francisco Aragón is the son of Nicaraguan immigrants. A native of San Francisco, California, he holds degrees in Spanish from UC Berkeley and NYU. Upon his return to the United States in 1998 after a decade in Spain, Aragón completed graduate degrees in creative writing from UC Davis and the University of Notre Dame, respectively. In 2003 he joined the University of Notre Dame’s Institute for Latino Studies (ILS), where he established Letras Latinas, the ILS’ literary initiative, which is celebrating its 20th anniversary in 2024, and which he continues to direct. Letras Latinas is a founding member of the Poetry Coalition, a national alliance. In 2010, he was awarded the “Outstanding Latino/a Cultural Arts, Literary Arts and Publications Award by the American Association of Hispanics in Higher Education. Between 2008-2012, he served as a trustee of the Association of Writing and Writing Programs (AWP). In 2015 he was awarded a VIDO Award by VIDA, Women in the Literary Arts. In 2017, he was a finalist for Split This Rock’s Freedom Plow Award for poetry and activism. A CantoMundo fellow and a member of the Macondo Writers’ Workshop, Aragón is the author of three books: Puerta del Sol (2005), Glow of Our Sweat (2010), and After Rubén (2020), as well as editor of the anthology, The Wind Shifts: New Latino Poetry (2007). His poems and translations (from the Spanish) have appeared in various print and online journals, as well as over twenty anthologies. He has read his work widely, including at universities, bookstores, art galleries, the Dodge Poetry Festival and the Split This Rock Poetry Festival. He spends the fall and spring semester on the Notre Dame campus where he teaches courses on Latinx poetry and creative writing. He divides his time between South Bend, IN and Mililani, HI.