Tintero Projects Organizers
Lupe Mendez - Founder/Lead Curator
Lupe is an internationally published poet, in book and online formats, including Norton’s –Sudden Fiction Latino: Short-Short Stories From The United States and Latin America, The Bayou Review (University of Houston-Downtown), Flash (University of Chester, England)- the international forum for flash fiction, Huizache, the magazine of Latino literature, Luna Luna Magazine, Tinderbox, Border Senses, Glassworks, Revista Síncope (D.F., México), Hunger Mountain, and Gulf Coast. Mendez holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Texas @ El Paso and works with Nuestra Palabra: Latino Writers Having Their Say, The Brazilian Arts Foundation and is one of the Co-Founders of the Librotraficante Movement. His debut collection of poetry, Why I Am Like Tequila was published in May of 2019 by Willow Books. He currently serves as the Houston based Literary Outreach Coordinator for Poets & Writers. He has received fellowships from CantoMundo, Macondo, and the Crescendo Literary/Poetry Foundation's Poetry Incubator.
Jasminne Mendez - Events Coordinator
Jasminne Mendez is an award winning author, performance poet and educator. She received her B.A. in English Literature and her M.Ed. in Curriculum and Instruction from the University of Houston. Mendez has had poetry and memoir published both nationally and internationally and her first multi-genre memoir Island of Dreams was published by Floricanto Press was awarded Best Young Adult Latino Focused Book by the International Latino Book Awards in 2015. Recently, her personal essay El Corte received honorable mention in the Barry Lopez Creative Non-Fiction Prize in CutThroat, A Journal of the Arts and was published in their Best of CutThroat edition March 2016. She has shared the stage as a performance poet with world renowned authors Taylor Mali, Sandra Cisneros, Dagoberto Gilb, and Aamalia Ortiz. She is a 2016 VONA Alumni, a CantoMundo Fellow and a Macondo Fellow and received her MFA from the creative writing program at the Rainier Writing Workshop at Pacific Lutheran University. Her latest book - Nightblooming Jasmin(n)e: Personal Essays & Poetry was published in 2018 by Arte Publico Press.
Reyes Ramirez - Chapbook Coordinator
Reyes Ramirez is a Houstonian, writer, educator, curator, and organizer of Mexican and Salvadoran descent. Reyes won the 2019 YES Contemporary Art Writer’s Grant, 2017 Blue Mesa Review Nonfiction Contest, 2014 riverSedge Poetry Prize and has poems, stories, essays, and reviews in: Indiana Review, Cosmonauts Avenue, december magazine, Arteinformado, Texas Review, Houston Noir, Gulf Coast Journal, The Acentos Review, Cimarron Review, and elsewhere. He is a 2020 CantoMundo Fellow, 2022 Crosstown Arts Writer in Residence, and has been awarded grants from the Mid-America Arts Alliance, Houston Arts Alliance, Poets & Writers, and The Warhol Foundation’s Idea Fund. His short story collection The Book of Wanderers will be published with University of Arizona's Camino del Sol series in Spring 2022.