Mario PadillaMario René Padilla is a tenured professor of English at Santa Monica College, where he teaches creative writing and Latin-American literature. He was born in Detroit, Michigan, and is of Mexican and Italian descent, but grew up nevertheless a "mid-wetern" kid in Columbus, Ohio. Multiculturalism and mixed-cultural identity issues are central themes in his work. His poetry and stories have appeared in North American Review, The Antioch Review, New Letters, Alligator Juniper, The Ledge, INKWELL Magazine, Americas Review, Tulip Tree Review, Chiron Review, Atlanta Review, Westwind UCLA, among others. His first collection of poetry, Reaching Back for the Neverendings (1993), was issued by Red Dancefloor Press in LA. His second collection of poetry, Blue Plums & Weeds (2021), was issued by PSPOETS in LA. Padilla won a Fulbright Award for collecting and translating the early poetry and prose of Jorge Luis Borges for his dissertation Borges, Faulkner and Hemingway: Young Poets of Prose. He has an MA in English from Loyola Marymount and a PhD in Comparative Literature from USC. He currently resides in Venice, CA with his wife Christine and blended family of six. Read More Read Less