Praised by Richard Rodriguez as an “exuberant literary outlaw,” José Orduña published his first book, The Weight of Shadows, to great acclaim, with one reviewer calling it a “sharp-eyed probe into the underside of the American dream while offering a fierce vision of the way race and class continue to shape government policy in a country that still bills itself as the land of opportunity.” A regular contributor to publications such as Buzzfeed, Guernica, and TriQuarterly, José now holds the Russo Chair in Creative Writing at the University of New Mexico.

“When I went to the Nonfiction Writing Program, my desire to write—to be a writer—was flimsy at best. I knew I loved writing, but I couldn’t conceive of making a life in which writing was an engine rather than something closer to a hobby. Being surrounded by so many people, both faculty and students, who not only took writing seriously, but imagined a life that bled into writing and writing that bled into life, was transformative. Through my formal course of study, hours of discussions that took place after class, the level of dedication I observed in my peers, and the confidence and seriousness with which the faculty treated our writing, I left the NWP with the ability to make writing a practice that has become central to my life.”