Steven Espada Dawson

Steven Espada Dawson is from East Los Angeles and the author of LATE TO THE SEARCH PARTY (Scribner, 2025). The son of a Mexican immigrant, he is a former Ruth Lilly Fellow and Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing Fellow. He received his MFA in the Midwest, served as a poetry editor for Copper Nickel and Sycamore Review, and has taught creative writing at universities, libraries, and prisons across the country. His poems appear in many journals and have been anthologized in Best New Poets, Best of the Net, Pushcart Prize, and Sarabande’s Another Last Call. He lives in Madison, Wisconsin, where he serves as Poet Laureate.