I am an essayist, poet, critic, and editor. My book of creative nonfiction, Tell Me About Your Bad Guys: Fathering in Anxious Times, features in the University of Nebraska Press’s American Lives series (2025). My previous books include the collection of poems Urbilly, the study of Latinx poetry Broken Souths, and, as coeditor with Claudia Rankine, the critical anthology Poetics of Social Engagement.

I teach Latinx literature at Villanova University, where I am a professor in the Department of English. Before coming to Villanova, I taught at Hunter College/CUNY and at the University of South Carolina.

I have been a faculty fellow at the Center for Place Culture and Politics (CUNY Graduate Center) and at the National Endowment for the Humanities, editor of Litmosphere, the journal of Charlotte Lit, and an advisor for Latino Poetry (Library of America).

My current book project, Nuestra Appalachia: How Latinos are Changing a Region’s Culture, examines the cultural impacts of Latino migration to and settlement in Appalachia. The project tells the story of how Latinos, both as producers of culture and as the subjects of cultural productions, are actively transforming regional sports traditions, foodways, literary and linguistic practices, built environments, and more.

Born and raised in the mountains of southwest Virginia, I live outside of Philadelphia with my partner, our daughter, and our dog.