About Us


About Us

RIO GRANDE REVIEW is a non-profit bilingual publication run by students of the MFA in Creative Writing at The University of Texas at El Paso. RGR has been promoting creative writing in El Paso, the US-Mexico border, and worldwide for over ten years.

Contact information:
RIO GRANDE REVIEW
University of Texas at El Paso
PMB 671
500 W. University Ave.
El Paso, Texas 79968
editors@riograndereview.com



¿Quiénes somos?

RIO GRANDE REVIEW es una publicación bilingüe dirigida por estudiantes de la Maestría en Creación Literaria de la Universidad de Texas en El Paso. RGR ha estado difundiendo la creación literaria en El Paso, en la frontera México-Estados Unidos, y a nivel mundial por más de diez años.

Información de contacto:
RIO GRANDE REVIEW
University of Texas at El Paso
PMB 671
500 W. University Ave.
El Paso, Texas 79968
editors@riograndereview.com

 

The Current Editorial Team & Advisor

 

Daniel Centeno Daniel Centeno Maldonado, Ph. D. ha vivido a caballo entre Venezuela y España. Estudió la Licenciatura en Comunicación Social en la Universidad Católica Andrés Bello de Caracas y la Maestría en Periodismo en la Universidad Complutense de Madrid, en donde también se recibió de Doctor en Periodismo. Fue Director Editorial del sello Alfaguara en Venezuela. También se desempeñó como profesor de pregrado y postgrado de la Escuela de Comunicación Social de la Universidad Católica Andrés Bello de Caracas. Ha publicado los libros Postmodernidad en el cine: Romeo y Julieta como espejo de la sociedad contemporánea y Periodismo a ras del boom. Su trabajo periodístico, crítico y de creación literaria ha aparecido en el periódico ABC, El Nacional, El Universal, Feriado, Letra Internacional, Sala de Espera, Conciencia Activa, Mirada Global, Armas y Letras, FronteraD, Guía del Ocio de Madrid, Arcadia y Rolling Stone Latinonamérica, entre otras. Actualmente es beneficiario del Bilingual MFA Program in Creative Writing de la Universidad de Texas, en donde también se reparte entre tareas docentes y como editor de la revista literaria Río Grande Review. Su libro de entrevistas, crónicas y perfiles a escritores, músicos y cineastas internacionales, Retratos Hablados, está por salir en Venezuela bajo el sello Debate de la editorial Random House.

Daniel Centeno Maldonado, Ph. D. has lived intermittently in Venezuela and Spain. He obtained his Bachelor’s in Social Communication from the Universidad Católica Andrés Bello, in Caracas and a Master’s degree in Journalism from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid. By the age of 30, he finished his Ph.D. in Analysis of the Journalistic Message at the aforementioned Spanish university. He was Editorial Director at Alfaguara Venezuela. He also taught at the undergraduate and graduate levels at the Escuela de Comunicación Social from the Universidad Católica Andrés Bello, in Caracas. He has published the books Postmodernidad en el cine: Romeo y Julieta como espejo de la sociedad contemporánea and Periodismo a ras del boom. His book of interviews to international writers, Retratos Hablados, is forthcoming in Venezuela by Editorial Lumen. His work as a journalist, critic and writer can be read in the newspaper ABC, El Nacional, El Universal, Letra Internacional, Sala de Espera, Conciencia Activa, Mirada Global, Armas y Letras, Arcadia and Rolling Stone Latinonamérica, among others.

 

 

Angel ValenzuelaDaniel Ríos Lopera nació en Medellín en 1985. Graduado en Comunicación y Lenguajes Audiovisuales. Ha sido escritor y director de dos cortometrajes: “Le cayó mierda a la sopa” y “Ábaco”. Éste último, co dirigido con Sara Espinal Ramírez, fue parte de la selección oficial del Festival de Cine de Bogotá en 2008 y ganador del Festival de Cine de la Luna en 2009. Igualmente, ese mismo año, fue finalista en el concurso del Fondo para el Desarrollo Cinematográfico que entrega el Ministerio de Cultura de Colombia, con su guión para largometraje “Bye Bye Tv”. En 2008 resultó ganador de las Becas a la Creación Artística que otorga la Alcaldía de Medellín en la categoría Cuento jóvenes inéditos. Gracias a dicho estímulo se hizo la publicación de su libro de cuentos “Los Tiburones a veces tienen pesadillas” que cuenta ya con dos ediciones.

Daniel Ríos Lopera with a bachelor's degree in communication and audiovisual language, has written and directed two short films: “Le cayó mierda a la sopa” y “Ábaco”. The later, co-directed with Sara Espinal Ramirez, was part of the 2008 Festival de Cine de Bogota's Official Selection and winner at Festival de Cine de la Luna in 2009. That same year, he was a finalist in the contest of the Fondo para el Desarrollo Cinematográfico, awarded by the Ministerio de Cultura de Colombia, with his feature - length screenplay “Bye Bye Tv”. In the year 2008, he was the recepient of the scholarship for Artistic Creation, granted by the Municipaly of Medellín, in the New Young Fiction category. As a consequence of such merit, “Los Tiburones a veces tienen pesadillas”, his first collection of short stories, was published.

 

 

Angel Valenzuela Ángel Valenzuela creció inmerso en el ambiente bicultural de la frontera. En su infancia, desarrolló un agudo interés en la forma y la letra, libros y literatura. Tiene una licenciatura en Diseño Gráfico y se especializa en Medios Impresos y Diseño Editorial. Ha participado en diversas revistas como escritor, diseñador y director de arte. En el 2007, publica Dosis Letradas, su primer libro, en conjunto con dos compañeros escritores. Le apasiona la tipografía, la obra de Alessandro Baricco, la música de Sigur Rós y el olor de la albahaca y la bergamota.

Ángel Valenzuela grew up immersed in the bicultural environment of the border community. In his early childhood years, he developed a keen interest in letterform, books and literature. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Graphic Design, and specializes in Print Media & Editorial Design. He has contributed with several magazines both as a writer and a designer. In 2007, he published Dosis Letradas, his first book, in collaboration with two fellow authors. He loves typography, the works of Alessandro Baricco, music by Sigur Rós and the smell of basil and bergamot.



Sasha Pimentel ChaconFaculty Advisor: Sasha Pimentel Chacón was born in Manila, Philippines. Her first book of poems "Insides She Swallowed" is forthcoming from West End Press (September 2009). Her poems and essays have appeared or are forthcoming in journals such as The American Poetry Review, Callaloo, Colorado Review, The Florida Review, OCHO, and In The Grove, among others. She is the winner of an Academy of American Poets Prize, a former Philip Levine fellow, and a recent multiple Pushcart-prize nominee. She is the editor of BorderSenses. She teaches creative writing at the University of Texas El Paso, and holds an MFA from California State University, Fresno. She lives in the border community of El Paso-Ciudad Juárez with her husband, author Daniel Chacón.


Johnny PayneChair of the Creative Writing Department at UTEP & Advisor to the RGR:
Benjamin Alire Sáenz was born in 1954 in Old Picacho, a small farming village outside of Las Cruces, New Mexico, forty-two miles north of the U.S. / Mexico border. He was the fourth of seven children and was brought up in a traditional Mexican-American Catholic family. He entered the seminary in 1972, a decision that was as much political as it was religious. After concluding his theological studies at the University of Louvain, he was ordained a Catholic priest. Three and a half years later, he left the priesthood.
At the age of 30, he entered the University of Texas at El Paso. He later received a fellowship at the University of Iowa. In 1988, he received a Wallace E. Stegner Fellowship in poetry from Stanford University. In 1993, he returned to the border to teach in the bilingual MFA program at UTEP.
Sáenz is the author of a previous book of poetry, Calendar of Dust, which won an American Book Award. Cinco Puntos published two of his other books of poetry called Elegies in Blue and the now out of print, Dark and Perfect Angels.
He is the author of numerous novels, books for children and young adults as well as a collection of short stories. His bestselling bilingual children's books include: A Gift from Papá Diego,Grandma Fina and Her Wonderful Umbrellas and A Perfect Season for Dreaming.
His award winning young adult novel is Sammy & Juliana in Hollywood. An essay by Ben Sáenz entitled "Exile, El Paso, Texas," appears in another Cinco Puntos Press book, The Late Great Mexican Border, which is now out of print.

 

 

Previous Editorial Teams & Advisors

 

Johnny PaynePrevious Chair of the Creative Writing Department at UTEP & Advisor to the RGR: Johnny Payne's novels include Kentuckiana (a featured selection of Kentucky Public Television for 2001), North of Patagonia, and The Ambassador’s Son. His plays, including The Devil in Disputanta and The Serpent’s Lover, have been produced in Chicago, Texas and Virginia on both professional and university stages. Payne received his doctorate in Comparative Literature from Stanford University and his MFA from the University of Alabama. Currently he is writing Maysville, a novel set in abolitionist Kentucky. His ethnographic fieldwork in highland Peru has appeared as the volume She-Calf and Other Quechua Folk Tales.

 

Fall 09-Spring 10

Sahalie Hashim

Sahalie Hashim has spent the majority of her life in the Pacific Northwest. She received her B.A. degree in English Literature and a minor in Spanish from Whitman College in Walla Walla, WA during May of 2007. For the past year and a half Sahalie has worked as an editorial assistant for Superconsciousness Magazine. An avid soccer player, reader, writer, and piano player, Sahalie enjoys avoiding the evils of T.V. and spending time with her family.



Miranda SmithMiranda Smith grew up in Bethesda, Maryland, where she was a reader for the literary magazine Eidolon at Walt Whitman High School. She attended Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, MA where she got a BA in anthropology and studio art. At Mount Holyoke she was a reader for the magazine Verbosity. She and a friend also founded a small group of creative writers in 2003 called Moneta. With a team of readers, she helped select the Mount Holyoke contestant for the yearly Glascock poetry competition in 2005 and 2006. She was a volunteer reader and copy-editor for the Rio Grande Review this school year, and is a co-secretary of the BCWSO. Three adjectives that describe Miranda are detail-oriented, artistic, and very hakuna matata.



Silvana AyalaSilvana Ayala Peláez received a B.A. in Mechatronics Engineering and is pursuing her MFA in Creative Writing at UTEP. She was born in Hermosillo, Mexico, although her family is from Uruguay. Silvana has lived in Tucson, AZ and Curitiba, Brasil. Her dream job would be to work in a circus (not lifelong, though).

 

Faculty Advisor: Sasha Pimientel Chacón

 

Fall 08-Spring 09

Laura Cesarco Eglin is a Uruguayan poet and translator. She has an MA in English Literature from The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Laura is currently in her last year of the MFA in Creative Writing at The University of Texas at El Paso.


Roberto SantosRoberto Santos is a Jewish-Dominican American Bilingual Master of Fine Arts candidate at the University of Texas at El Paso. He is currently working on his graduate thesis, a collection of poems that navigate through various multiethnic-multicultural landscapes, situations and circumstances. His experience as co-editor of the Rio Grande Review was a challenging one that enlightened his understanding of the intricacies of Creative Writing, and which also allowed him the space to rest in the good writing of so many authors from around the world.  


Juana MorielJuana Moriel was born in Cd. Juarez but currently lives in El Paso. She has a M.A. in Hispano-American Literature and is now a graduate student in the MFA Creative Writing program at UTEP. Juana has recently finished a historical novel and is now in the process of finding a publisher.


Faculty Advisor: José de Piérola

 

Fall 07-Spring 08

Verónica Guajardo


Trent Hudley is a graduate from the Bi-lingual MFA program at the University of Texas at El Paso. He is working on a novel, and has published short fiction and non-fiction in various print and on-line journals including the Rio Grande Review. He currently lives in Denver, Colorado.


José Manuel PalaciosJoseph Avski was born in Medellín, Colombia in 1980. He lived in Montería, a small city on the Caribbean coast, until the age of 16. Joseph got a degree in Physics from the Universidad de Antioquia, with a thesis on Quantum Noise. In 2006 he went to El Paso, Texas, where he discovered the silence of the desert, discipline for writing, and good tequila. He graduated with an MFA in Creative Writing from UTEP with a short-story-collection/novel called El libro de los infiernos. Joseph Avski has won short story contests in Colombia and Uruguay, and the IX Concurso Nacional de Novela in Colombia with his novel El corazón del escorpión. He is currently pursuing his Ph.D.


Daniel ChaconFaculty Advisor: Daniel Chacón is author of the novel and the shadows took him and two collections of stories, Chicano Chicanery and Unending Rooms, winner of the Hudson Prize. He co-edited The Last Supper of Chicano Heroes: the Selected Works of José Antonio Burciaga.