Craig Santos Perez – Guåhan / Guam – Hawai‘i
Author, Publisher, Director Creative Writing Program University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa.
Craig Santos Perez is a native Chamoru originally from Guåhan (Guam). In 1995, his family migrated to California, where he lived for fifteen years before moving to Hawaiʻi.
He is the author of three books of poetry: from unincorporated territory [hacha] (2008), from unincorporated territory [saina] (2010), and from unincorporated territory [guma’] (2014). He co-edited the anthology Chamoru Childhood (2009), co-founded Ala Press (an independent press dedicated to Pacific literature), and co-starred in the audio poetry album, Undercurrent (2011) with Kanaka Maoli (Native Hawaiian) poet Brandy Nalani McDougall. His poetry, essays, and book reviews have been published in over a hundred literary and scholarly journals and anthologies.
Craig has performed his poetry throughout the Pacific, the U.S, and Europe. As a guest lecturer he has spoken about poetry, activism, research, and scholarship, publishing, Pacific Studies, Indigenous literatures, militarization, tourism, colonialism, decolonization, migration, and diaspora.
Craig earned a B.A. in Art History & Literature from the Johnston Center of Integrative Studies at the University of Redlands (2002) and an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of San Francisco (2006). He is finishing his Ph.D. in Comparative Ethnic Studies at University of California, Berkeley.
He is currently an Associate Professor in the English Department and Director of the Creative Writing Program at the University of Hawai’i, Mānoa. He co-curates Native Voices: A Reading and Lecture Series and the Chamorro Studies Speaker Series.
In 2010, the Guam Legislature passed Resolution No. 315-30, recognizing and commending Craig “as an accomplished poet who has been a phenomenal ambassador for our island, eloquently conveying through his words, the beauty and love that is the Chamorro culture.”
You can link to his faculty page here. Or you can connect with him on Facebook.
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