Octubre: A Reading by Colorado Latine Authors at Petals & Pages

Join us for Octubre: A Reading by Colorado Latine Authors

We'll hear from Aerik Francis, Sheryl Luna, Emily Perez, and Dino Enrique Piacentini, with books from all authors available for sale.

Aerik Francis (they/he) is a Queer Black & Latinx poet & teaching artist based in Denver, Colorado, USA. Francis is currently the Adams County Poet Laureate as well as the author of the chapbooks Bodypolitic (forthcoming Spring 2026 with Abode Press), Miseducation (May 2023, New Delta Review), and Bodyelectronic (April 2022, Trouble Department). They have received poetry fellowship support from CantoMundo, The Watering Hole, Sundress Academy for the Arts, and the Chrysalis Institute. They are also a poetry reader for Underblong poetry journal. Francis has poetry published widely, links of which may be found at their website phaentompoet.com . Find them on social media @phaentompoet.

Sheryl Luna’s collections include Magnificent Errors, recipient of the Ernest Sandeen Poetry Prize and the International Latino Awards’ Juan Felipe Hererra Gold Medal, Seven, finalist for the Colorado Book Awards, and Pity the Drowned Horses, recipient of the Andres Montoya Poetry Prize. Work has appeared in Poetry, Huizache and Puerto del Sol. She has received fellowships from Yaddo, the Anderson Center, Ragdale and Canto Mundo, and the Alfredo Cisneros del Moral Foundation Award, and was inducted into the Texas Institute of Letters.

Emily Pérez is the author of What Flies Want, winner of the Iowa Prize and finalist for a Colorado Book Award; House of Sugar, House of Stone, a finalist for the Colorado Prize; and two chapbooks. She co-edited the anthology The Long Devotion: Poets Writing Motherhood, also a Colorado Book Award finalist. Her next collection, Head Full of Clocks, is forthcoming from BOA Editions. A CantoMundo fellow and Ledbury Critic, her poems have appeared in journals including Kenyon Review, Copper Nickel, Prairie Schooner, and Poetry. She teaches English and Gender Studies in Denver, where she lives with her family.

Dino Enrique Piacentini’s debut novel, Invasion of the Daffodils, about a Mexican-American family living on an island off the coast of California during the Korean War, was published by Astrophil Press in October 2024. His stories and essays have appeared in One Story, Pembroke, Gulf Coast, Confrontation, The Masters’ Review, The Atticus Review, The Globe & Mail, and The Massachusetts Review, among other places. He lives in Denver, where he teaches creative writing at the University of Denver’s University College and Lighthouse Writers Workshop. Before becoming a writer, he worked at various visual arts organizations throughout San Francisco, including Galería de la Raza, Yerba Buena Center, and The Mexican Museum.