User:DraChicana1/Leslie Contreras Schwartz

Leslie Contreras Schwartz is an American poet and author of Mexican American descent. She served as the fourth Houston Poet Laureate from 2019 to 2021. She received her Bachelor's Degree from Rice University and is a graduate of The Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College.

Early Life
Contreras Schwartz was born and raised in Houston and can trace her family roots in the Houston-area to the early 1900s. Both her father and mother are Mexican American.

Writing and career
In 2017, Contreras Schwartz's poetry collection, Nightbloom & Cenote (St. Julian Press), was a semi-finalist for the Tupelo Press Dorset Prize.

In 2018, Contreras Schwartz was selected to be a featured poet at Houston Poetry Fest.

Contreras Schwartz dedicated her Poet Laureate term to addressing healing and mental wellness. Her term spanned the COVID-19 pandemic and as a result, she curated collective, communal poetry video collage titled "IT’S A MASK IT’S A VIRUS IT’S A KNEE." This project compiled the experiences of Houstonians during the pandemic and featured local writers, activists, and performers. The film debuted at the Houston Holocaust Museum on June 29, 2022.

In 2021, the Academy of American Poets awarded her the Poet Laureate Fellowship to create Writing and Mindfulness: Creative Writing Exercises, a writing resource book for the general public.

Contreras has taught poetry and nonfiction courses at Rice University, Alma College, and the University of Houston. Her writing has appeared in The Missouri Review, The Collagist, [PANK], Verse Daily, The Texas Review, Catapult, and Tinderbox Poetry Journal.

Poetry

 * The Body Cosmos, (Mouthfeel Press, Forthcoming 2024)
 * Black Dove / Paloma Negra, (FlowerSong Press, 2020)
 * Nightbloom & Cenote, (SJP, 2018)
 * Fuego, (St. Julien Press, 2016)
 * The Bell, A Body’s Universe of Big Bangs, and Cathedral, Academy of American Poets, July 2021
 * Night Roost, Rogue Agent, July 2021
 * Echolocation With Self and Body Parts and Illness in Origami, Anomaly Literary Journal, May 2021
 * Anti-ode for Rescue, Zócalo Public Square, Summer 2020
 * Quarantine, Luna Luna, Summer 2020
 * A Body’s Universe of Big Bangs, (Periodic Element Folio edited by Rose-bud Ben-Oni), Pleiades, Winter 2020
 * Hear That Noise? I’m Getting Stirred, Pleiades, Winter 2020
 * Who Speaks for Us Here?, Rogue Agent, September 2020
 * My Mother the Seamstress, Indianapolis Review, Spring 2019
 * shame, documented, Iowa Review, Winter 2019
 * “My Other Name,” PANK, Latinx Folio, Spring 2019
 * “the way a flock of black birds sets off in one large wave," The Missouri Review, Poem of the Week, November 12, 2018
 * "Coordinates to A Field In My Therapist's Notes," and "an object the girl an object," The Collagist, December 2018
 * “Unidentified Missing Minors Without Photos,” Queen Mob’s Teahouse, September 2018

Non-fiction

 * From the Womb of Sky and Earth, winter of the 2022 Nonfiction Prize (C&R Press, Fall 2023)
 * "Times I Didn't Say Much," (Texas Review, Summer 2017)
 * “When a Mystery Illness Strikes,” (Catapult, May 2017)
 * “Becoming a Swimmer,” (Southwest: The Magazine)
 * “The Light: On Teaching, Childhood, and a School Shooting.” (The Toast)
 * “Dark Face in the Window,” (Houston Chronicle)
 * First-Person Friday: Nike Power (Ozy)
 * Why I Converted to Judaism at Seven-Months Pregnant, (Kveller)
 * In Denial No More: Floods Prove Disaster Can Strike Anyone (Houston Chronicle)
 * Wrestlers: Thoughts on Writing as a Mother (Raising Mothers)

Fiction

 * “Passengers,” Gulf Coast: A Journal of Literature and Fine Arts, August 2018
 * "Women and Girls, Missing," in the collection of short stories Houston Noir, edited by Gwendolyn Zepeda from Akashic Press, 2019