MAURICIO NOVOA
Mauricio Novoa was born and raised in Glenmont, MD to Salvadoran refugees. He attended Gettysburg College, where he lived briefly after graduation. There he worked with middle and high school students in a Migrant Education after-school program, helped tutor in adult ESL classes, and volunteered at Casa de le Cultura programs. He received his Master’s degree from Queens University of Charlotte. Memorias From The Beltway is his first full-length collection of poetry. His work has also been published in The Petigru Review, Acentos Review, Blue Mesa Review, Latino Book Review, the anthology The Wandering Song: Central American Writing in the United States, and is forthcoming in The BreakBeat Poets Vol. 4: LatinNext. He currently lives in Austin, TX with his partner and pet tortoise, where he volunteers at Resistencia Books and the Barrio Writers program in Pflugerville.
“In this work, we are held at attention to listen and contend with themes of working class survivalism and ingenuity, spiritual tenacity, hip hop articulations, and el exilio via the poems of Mauricio, and his generation, to disrupt our own understandings of plural Latinidad.”
—Lilia Rosas, Ph.D. Executive Director, Red Salmon Arts