ire'ne lara silva, 2023 Texas State Poet Laureate, is the author of five poetry collections, furia, Blood Sugar Canto, CUICACALLI/House of Song, FirstPoems, and the eaters of flowers, which won Gold for the 2025 Juan Felipe Herrera Best Poetry Book (ILBA), a comic book, VENDAVAL, and two short story collections, flesh to bone, which won the Premio Aztlán, and the light of your body. ire'ne is the recipient of the 2026 Jessie H. Jones Fellowship, the ILBA 2025 Rising Stars Poetry Award, a 2025 Storyknife Writers Residency, the 2021 Texas Institute of Letters Shrake wardfor Best Short Nonfiction, a 2021 Tasajillo Writers Grant, a 2017 NALAC Fund for the Arts Grant, the final Alfredo Cisneros del Moral Award, and was the Fiction Finalist for AROHO's 2013 Gift of Freedom Award.