About Pat Mora
Pat Mora (born January 19, 1942 in El Paso, Texas) is an Hispanic-American poet and author of books for adults, teens and children. She began writing in the early 1980s. She published her first collection of poetry Borders, by Arte Publico Press in 1986 followed by Dizzy in Your Eyes: Poems about Love (Knopf Books for Young Readers, 2010), My Own True Name: New and Selected Poems for Young Adults, by Arte Publico Press, in 2000, Aunt Carmen's Book of Practical Saints, 1997, and Agua Santa: Holy Water, in 1995. The themes of her books are often shaped by life on the Mexico–United States border where she was born and spent much of her life. Her writing highlights the human and cultural diversity of the southwestern United States and northern Mexico. Mora celebrates diversity and is opposed to the idea of an American monoculture.Mora's style of writing often incorporates code-switching between English and Spanish words. As a writer, she allows a free-flow of ideas in her first draft: she doesn't question her motivation for writing and writes using as little conscious analysis as possible. She prefers to use her critical eye for editing her own work later.
She received many awards and fellowships include the Arizona Governor's Book Award for her book Confetti: Poems for Children, (2004), the Kellogg National Leadership Fellowship (1986), fellowships in poetry from the National Endowment for the Arts, four Southwest Book awards, the Gelett Burgess Children's Book Award, the Texas Writer Award and the Loretto Legacy Award for Arts and Literature.
She lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico and Cincinnati, Ohio.
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