Jennifer Givhan is a renowned Mexican-American and Indigenous poet and novelist. She hails from the Southwestern desert and has received prestigious poetry fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and PEN/Rosenthal Emerging Voices. With a Master’s degree from California State University Fullerton and a Master’s in Fine Arts from Warren Wilson College, Givhan has established herself as a prominent figure in contemporary literature.
Givhan has authored five full-length poetry collections, including Rosa’s Einstein (University of Arizona Press), and the novels Trinity Sight and Jubilee (Blackstone Publishing), which were finalists for the Arizona-New Mexico Book Awards. Her latest poetry collection Belly to the Brutal (Wesleyan University Press) and novel River Woman, River Demon (Blackstone Publishing) draw from her practice of brujería, a form of folk magic from Latin America. Her work has been widely published in reputable literary journals such as The New Republic, The Nation, POETRY, TriQuarterly, The Boston Review, The Rumpus, and Salon.
Givhan's accolades include the Southwest Book Award, New Ohio Review’s Poetry Prize, Phoebe Journal’s Greg Grummer Poetry Prize, the Pinch Journal Poetry Prize, and Cutthroat’s Joy Harjo Poetry Prize. She has taught at various universities, including the University of Washington Bothell’s MFA program and Western New Mexico University, and has delivered guest lectures at universities across the country. Currently, Givhan resides in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where she raises her family, but is currently researching her next book in San Diego near her hometown of Brawley on the Mexicali border. She is active on social media platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter, where she shares inspiration, prompts, and insights about the publishing world and life as a writer and mother.