Visiting Writers Series Michael Torres

National Poetry Series Winner

Michael Torres was born and raised in Pomona, California where he spent his adolescence as a graffiti artist. In 2016 he received his MFA in creative writing from Minnesota State University, Mankato, was a winner of the Loft Mentor Series, received an Individual Artist Initiative Grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board, and was awarded a Jerome Foundation Research and Travel Grant to visit the pueblo in Jalisco, Mexico where his father grew up. In 2019 he received fellowships and awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, and The Loft Literary Center for the Mirrors & Windows Program. A former Artist-in-Residence at the Camargo Foundation in Cassis, France as well as a McKnight Writing Fellow, he is currently a 2021-22 Jerome Hill Artist Fellow.

His first collection of poems, An Incomplete List of Names, was selected by Raquel Salas Rivera for the National Poetry Series, named one of NPR’s Best Books of 2020, and was featured on the podcast Code Switch.

His writing has been featured or is forthcoming in Best New Poets 2020, The New Yorker, POETRY, Ploughshares, Smartish Pace, Los Angeles Review of Books, The Georgia Review, The Sun, and many other publications.