Laurie Ann Guerrero was born and raised in the Southside of San Antonio, Texas and was named Poet Laureate of the City of San Antonio in 2014 by former mayor, Julián Castro. Recently, she was appointed Texas State Poet Laureate for 2016. Her first full-length collection, A Tongue in the Mouth of the Dying, was selected by Francisco X. Alarcón as winner of the 2012 Andrés Montoya Poetry Prize and published by the University of Notre Dame Press in 2013. Guerrero holds a B.A. in English Language & Literature from Smith College and an MFA in Poetry from Drew University. She is the inaugural Poet-in-Residence at Palo Alto College in San Antonio and continues to live and write in her hometown.