The Fresno 15: Creative Writing Marathon

The Fresno 15 project will feature award-winning Fresno writers in a creative writing challenge and fundraiser to benefit the Larry Levis Memorial Scholarship in Creative Writing. Volunteer authors run a literary marathon, writing 15 pieces in 15 days, while the rest of us sponsor and encourage them as they write.

Visit the project website at FresnoWriters.com to read and enjoy the poetry and prose of our featured authors. Follow their progress and cheer them on!

David Campos
October 2-16

MFA in Creative Writing from UC Riverside; B.A. in English Literature from Fresno State

David Campos is the son of Mexican immigrants, a CantoMundo fellow, and the author of the poetry collections Furious Dusk (University of Notre Dam Press, 2015) and American Quasar (Red Hen Press, 2021). His poetry has appeared in The American Poetry Review, Ploughshares, Prairie Schooner, and The Normal School. He's the winner of the 2014 Andrés Montoya Poetry Prize from Letras Latinas, and the annual Prairie Schooner Strousse Award for the best group of poems in Prairie Schooner. He teaches at Fresno City College.

Author website

Hermelinda Hernandez Monjaras 
October 9-23

MFA in Creative Writing from Fresno State (in progress); B.A. in English - Creative Writing from Fresno State

Hermelinda Hernandez Monjaras is a Zapoteca from Oaxaca, Mexico. She's an aspiring poeta, currently pursuing her Master of Fine Arts degree in Creative Writing at Fresno State. She is a graduate artist in Juan Felipe Herrera's Laureate Lab Visual Wordist Studio, and she has received a fellowship from the Community of Writers. Her poetry has appeared in Small Press Traffic, Acentos Review, Zone 3, Poets.org, Honey Literary, The Ana, Voicemail Poems, and elsewhere.

Juan Felipe Herrera
October 16-30

Professor Emeritus of Chicano and Latin American Studies at Fresno State

Juan Felipe Herrera is the 21st Poet Laureate of the United States (2015-2016) and the first Latino to hold the position. From 2012-2014, he served as California Poet Laureate. Herrera's many collections of poetry include Every Day We Get More Illegal; Notes on the Assemblage; Senegal Taxi; Half of the World in Light: New and Selected Poems, a recipient of the PEN/Beyond Margins Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award; and 187 Reasons Mexicanos Can't Cross the Border: Undocuments 1971-2007. He is also the author of Crashboomlove: A Novel in Verse, which received the Americas Award. His books of prose for children include SkateFate; Calling the Doves, which won the Ezra Jack Keats Award; Upside Down Boy, which was adapted into a musical for young audiences in New York City; and Cinnamon Girl: Letters Found Inside a Cereal Box. His book Jabberwalking, a children's book focused on turning your wonder at the world around you into weird, wild, incandescent poetry, was published in 2018. Herrera is also a performance artist and activist on behalf of migrant and indigenous communities and at-risk youth.

Author website