Join Us: Friday, October 17, 2025 | 6 p.m. | St. Anne’s Courtyard
Our Lady of the Lake University (OLLU) invites the community to a special evening celebrating Octavio Quintanilla, named 2025–2026 Texas Poet Laureate. The event will feature a public reading and conversation in St. Anne’s Courtyard on Friday, October 17, at 6 p.m.
Quintanilla is the author of acclaimed poetry collections including If I Go Missing (Slough Press, 2014), The Book of Wounded Sparrows (Texas Review Press, 2024), longlisted for the National Book Award, and Las Horas Imposibles / The Impossible Hours (University of Arizona Press, 2025), winner of the 2024 Ambroggio Prize of the Academy of American Poets.
A celebrated visual artist as well, Quintanilla’s Frontextos (visual poems) have been exhibited in prestigious venues such as the Mexican Cultural Institute in San Antonio, the El Paso Museum of Art, and the Brownsville Museum of Fine Art, with permanent installations at San Antonio’s Labor Plaza and Poet’s Pointe.
Beyond his creative achievements, Quintanilla is the founder and director of the VersoFrontera literature and arts festival, publisher of Alabrava Press, and a former Poet Laureate of San Antonio. He was recently inducted into the Texas Institute of Letters and received the Nebrija Creadores Scholarship, completing a residency at the Instituto Franklin at Alcalá University in Spain. Quintanilla holds a Ph.D. from the University of North Texas and is a professor at Our Lady of the Lake University.
This event reflects OLLU’s enduring commitment to literature, art, and community engagement — honoring not only one of Texas’ most distinguished poets, but one of OLLU’s very own.
The event is free and open to the public.