About Lupe Mendez

Originally from Galveston, TX, Lupe Mendez (Writer//Educator//Activist) is the author WHY I AM LIKE TEQUILA (Willow Books, 2019), winner of the 2019 John A. Robertson Award for Best First Book of Poetry from the Texas Institute of Letters. He is the founder of Tintero Projects which works with emerging Latinx writers and other writers of color within the Texas Gulf Coast Region, with Houston as its hub. Lupe earned his Masters of Fine Arts from the University of Texas @ El Paso and his work can been seen in print and online formats including the Kenyon Review, Gulf Coast Journal, the Texas Review, the L.A. Review of Books, Split This Rock, Poetry Magazine and Poem-A-Day from the Academy of American Poets. Mendez is the 2022 Texas Poet Laureate. Follow Lupe on Instagram, TikTok & Twitter at @thepoetmendez.

Mendez has close to 20 years of experience as a performance poet - having opened up for notable writers as Dagoberto Gilb, Esmeralda Santiago, U.S. Poet Laureates, Juan Felipe Herrera and Ada Limon and legendary writers such as the late Raul Salinas. He has shared his poetry across the country in places like the Holocaust Museum Houston, the Jung Center, MECA (Houston,TX), the Mission Cultural Center For Latino Arts (San Francisco,CA), the National Hispanic Cultural Center (Albuquerque,NM)  the Mexican American Cultural Center (Austin,TX), and Columbia University, (New York, NY). Mendez has served as a keynote speaker/poetry performer all across Texas. He has hosted writing workshop opportunities across the country, most recently as a teaching artist for the Poetry Foundation (Chicago, IL) as it hosts its Teacher Poetry Summits in MIami, FL and Chicago, IL. 

Lupe is an internationally published writer with prose work in Latino Rebels, Houston Free Press, Aster(ix) Journal, the Kenyon Review, Norton's -Sudden Fiction Latino: Short-Short Stories From The United States and Latin America, and Flash (University of Chester, England)- the international forum for flash fiction, as well as poetry that appears in The Bayou Review (University of Houston-Downtown),  Huizache, Luna Luna Magazine, Pilgrimage, the Texas Review, Glass Poetry Journal, Tinderbox Poetry Journal, Hunger Mountain, the L.A. Review of Books, Green Mountains Review, Poetry Magazine, Gulf Coast Journal, and The Best American Poetry 2021, among others. 

In April of 2020, Mendez along with 7 other Texas artists was selected to represent the state as Texas Official Artists - Lupe serves as the 2022 Texas Poet Laureate, being only one of two poets from Galveston, TX and the first person of color from Galveston to have ever been appointed to this position . The title of Texas Poet Laureate is the state’s highest accolade for excellence in the arts.

Mendez’s latest collection, WHY I AM LIKE TEQUILA won the 2019 John A. Robertson Award for Best First Book of Poetry. He has been honored as one "Houston Press' Creative 100s" - and, along with the rest of the Librotraficante organizers, was also awarded the Downs Intellectual Freedom Award 2012 for the defense of Mexican American Studies and literature across the Southwest United States. He continues to work on submissions, creating more writing workshop opportunities and continues to share his poetry with local high schools, colleges and community/arts centers.

Lupe's work reflects his roots in Texas ( including Galveston Island, Houston, and the Rio Grande Valley) and the Mexican state of Jalisco (specifically, Atotonilco El Alto, San Jose del Valle, San Juan de los Lagos, Guadalajara, Los Cuates, La Pareja). Mendez is the son of an undocumented Mexicano (who later became documented and a Southern Tejana and his work remarks on issues from the political to the emotional in a way that intends to connect with both the novice reader to the pro poetic writer. 

Meanwhile . . .

Happily married to Jasminne Mendez and raising his daughter, Lupe works as an educator in Houston, TX., having received his Masters of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from the ON-LINE MFA IN CREATIVE WRITING PROGRAM at the Univ. of Texas @ El Paso .  Click on the bold words to get more info on the program.  - Click on Jasminne's name to go to her site.