About
Sarah’s Bio -
One of the most important defining characteristics of both myself and my writing is having been born in Houston and having lived here most of my life. I am deeply proud of being a Houstonian. What is often described as a free-wheeling atmosphere here has produced an “anything goes” attitude – an important component of both the entrepreneurial/economic realm and the artistic realm. The hard-working and civic-minded ethics of my parents, who moved to Houston after my dad’s discharge following World War II, set me up well for whatever would follow my traditional, Catholic schooling of elementary and high school years.
Before age five, I remember being in love with the written word. At that time, my mother was an elementary school teacher and she hand-made my first books, sewing the binding with white thread on her sewing machine. I hadn’t yet entered kindergarten, but how I loved those books with only a few words and large pictures from Life magazine that she had crafted for me.
Various other people unknowingly made sweet and caring contributions to my childhood love of writing. One of my dad’s older sisters 
and I wrote and mailed little letters to each other. Even though she was married and busy with her own teaching career, she always wrote back to me. During one of the rare trips to her home, she showed me the special box where she kept all my letters tied up in light blue satin ribbon. I was overwhelmed — I was important and what I wrote was important to someone.
Through other various careers (e.g. high school teacher, tax accountant, employee benefits consultant) I still carried the dream to be a writer. In the late 1980’s I took several courses from the University of Houston’s Creative Writing department. At that point, I was fascinated by the short story and focused on writing in that form. Several pieces were published in literary journals or anthologized.
In 1992 I began writing poetry. To this day I have no idea what changed the focus of my writing. Every time I sat down to write, poetry came out on the page, not prose.
Several years went by and I was well into my policing career before I began writing about police work. The first poem about policing was “Rosie Working Plain Clothes” — a humorous piece published in How To Undress A Cop (Arte Publico Press, 2000). Many of the later poems in that same book touch on death. It is my hope that some of these poems will spark understanding in civilians of the incredible paradoxes police officers have to deal with and work under on a daily basis. Law, justice, mercy — they’re all imperfect. Police officers work with these imperfections every day or night.
Some of my accomplishments:
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1999 PEN Texas Literary Award in Poetry
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Placed semi-finalist in the 2000 Fourteenth Annual Louisiana Literature Prize for Poetry
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Awarded the position of Visiting Scholar in the University of Houston’s Center for Mexican American Studies for an unprecedented two consecutive years (1999-2001)
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One poem, Glance, was chosen for the prestigious Poetry In Motion nationwide project
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Another of my poems, Seguin, was awarded an Honorable Mention by noted poet Kathleen Peirce in the 2007 Dos Gatos Poetry Calendar (Dos Gatos Press, Austin).
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Numerous poems have appeared in literary and policing magazines, and many have been anthologized here and in Europe.
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Co-edited Hit List: The Best of Latino Mystery (Arte Publico Press, May 2009) with Liz Martinez. This groundbreaking tome is a first-of-its-kind collection of short fiction by Latino writers. Some have been award-winning pioneers in the genre and some are exciting new voices who deserve broader attention.
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Currently Ms. Liz Martinez and I are co-editing a volume of short fiction for Akashic Press (2009/10) to be entitled Indian Country Noir.
More recently, my creative efforts have focused on editing. Recently I edited a volume of short memoir by young Latinos across the U.S. entitled Windows into My World: Latino Youth Write Their Lives (Arte Publico Press, 2007). This book won the 2008 Honor Award from the Skipping Stones Foundation for being an exceptional book promoting understanding of diverse cultures.
My most current editing project is working with a collection of non-fiction writing by law enforcement personnel on the subject of policing in America.
