Dr. Christopher Carmona, Visiting Associate Professor of English and Mexican American Studies, was recently inducted into the Texas Institute of Letters (TIL). TIL members are comprised of the state’s most recognized and serious writers of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, journalism, and scholarship.

Dr. Carmona serves as a board member of the national award-winning organization, Refusing To Forget, which researches the history of violence against Mexican Americans and Latinos in the early 20th Century and beyond. Carmona is also the author of “El Rinche: The Ghost Ranger of the Rio Grande,” which was a finalist for the 2019 Best Young Adult Novel for the Texas Institute of Letters. Currently, he is working on finishing this series of novels. Book two is out now. His short story collection, “The Road to Llorona Park,” won the 2016 NACCS Tejas Best Fiction Award and was listed as one of the top eight Latinx books in 2016 by NBCNews.