Special Show: a Tribute to Benjamin Alire Sáenz

Published October 20, 2022 at 12:00 PM MDT

“I’ve had an interesting life. I’ve had a painful life and I’ve had a wonderful life. It took me a long time to get to what and where I am,” says El Paso author and poet Benjamin Alire Sáenz.

(AUDIO WILL BE AVAILABLE AFTER PROGRAM AIRS)

In this episode of Words on a Wire we're here to bring you a very special show, a tribute to American poet and writer Benjamin Alire Saenz. This show is a compilation of the most memorable moments of the event, back in April of the present year at the El Paso Community Foundation. Featuring writers Daniel Chacón, Alessandra Narvaez Varela, Tim Z. Hernández, Lee Merrill Bird and Bobby Byrd, Alfredo Corchado and Former US Poet Laureate, Juan Felipe Herrera as the principal guest speakers of the event.

A big thank you to our team of producers Claudia Flores, Ana Llurba and Iliana Pichardo Urrutia and to the entire team that made this episode posible. Our Sound Editor: Facundo Torrieri. Script writer: Iliana Pichardo and our KTEP Producer Paul Castro and his team for helping us recording this wonderful event. We would also like to thank the El Paso Community Foundation, former, Dean of the college of Liberal arts at UTEP Denis A. O'Hearn and his team for making this event possible. And lastly to the Creative Writing Team from the Creative Writing Department at UTEP, for helping with the organization and marketing of the event.

"You have to learn to be vulnerable on the page," says El Paso author and poet Benjamin Alire Sáenz.

Benjamin Alire Sáenz is an author of poetry and prose for adults and teens. He was the first Hispanic winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award and a recipient of the American Book Award for his books for adults. He is the author of Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe, which was a Printz Honor Book, the Stonewall Award winner, the Pura Belpré Award winner, the Lambda Literary Award winner, and a finalist for the Amelia Elizabeth Walden Award, and its sequel, Aristotle and Dante Dive into the Waters of the World. His first novel for teens, Sammy and Juliana in Hollywood, was an ALA Top Ten Book for Young Adults and a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. His second book for teens, He Forgot to Say Goodbye, won the Tomás Rivera Mexican American Children’s Book Award, the Southwest Book Award, and was named a New York Public Library Book for the Teen Age. He lives in El Paso, Texas.

This interview originally aired on October 23, 2022.