Palacio grew up in South Central Los Angeles and holds two degrees in Comparative Literature. She is a 2007 PEN Center USA Emerging Voices Fellow and 2009 poetry alum of the Squaw Valley Community of Writers. Ocotillo Dreams won the 2012 PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Award. She now lives in Santa Barbara and New Orleans.
Program Biography:
Melinda Palacio married a Louisiana native and now divides her time between New Orleans and Santa Barbara, California. Her publications include the novel Ocotillo Dreams, winner of the 2012 PEN Oakland Award for Excellence in Literature, and the poetry collection How Fire Is a Story, Waiting.
Palacio's poet's eye reveals a vibrantly painted desert culture of fragile beauty and uncompromising harshness." ---Publishers Weekly
