Fresno State's Department of English presents an evening with Sandra Cisneros, author of the poetry collection Woman Without Shame from Penguin Random House (2022). This reading is the evening keynote address of the 15th annual Undergraduate Conference on Multiethnic Literatures of the Americas (UCMLA). Host is Prof. Melanie Hernandez.

7 to 8:30 PM
Friday, March 8, 2024
Alice Peters Auditorium (PB 191) at Fresno State

Free admission

Sandra Cisneros is a poet, short story writer, novelist, essayist, performer, and artist whose work explores the lives of the working-class. Her numerous awards include NEA fellowships in both poetry and fiction, the Texas Medal of the Arts, a MacArthur Fellowship, several honorary doctorates and national and international book awards, including Chicago’s Fifth Star Award, the PEN Center USA Literary Award, the Fairfax Prize, the National Medal of Arts. Most recently, she received the Ford Foundation’s Art of Change Fellowship, was recognized among The Frederick Douglass 200, won the PEN/Nabokov Award for international literature, and received a Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize from the Poetry Foundation. Her classic, coming-of-age novel, The House on Mango Street, has sold over seven million copies, has been translated into over twenty-five languages, and is required reading in elementary schools, high schools, and universities across the nation.  

In addition to her writing, Cisneros has fostered the careers of many aspiring and emerging writers through two non-profits she founded: the Macondo Foundation, which celebrates its 30th anniversary in 2025, and the Alfredo Cisneros del Moral Foundation, which ran for fifteen years. She is also the organizer of Los MacArturos, Latino MacArthur fellows who are community activists. Her literary papers are preserved in Texas at the Wittliff Collections at Texas State University. Her most recent book, Woman Without Shame, her first new collection of poems in 28 years, was published by Knopf and by Vintage Español in a Spanish language translation, Mujer sin vergüenza, by Liliana Valenzuela. Sandra Cisneros is a dual citizen of the United States and Mexico and earns her living by her pen. As a single woman, she chose to have books instead of children.

Author website: https://www.sandracisneros.com/ 

You can order a copy of Woman Without Shame from the author's publisher, Penguin Random House. Books in both English and Spanish will also be for sale at the event.

Sponsor:
This event is supported in part by Fresno State's Instructionally Related Activities fund

All attendees are strongly encouraged to wear a mask when indoors. Visit Covid.FresnoState.edu for current campus health updates.

Parking is free after 5 PM in Lots P5 and P6, east of the Peters Business Building. Enter campus at Shaw and Woodrow. (Campus map)

There will be no event livestream.

All participants are welcome. For disability related accommodations or access information, please contact Melanie Hernandez at melanieh@mail.fresnostate.edu or 559.278.1569. Requests should be made at least one week in advance of the event.