Octavio Quintanilla is the author of the poetry collection If I Go Missing (Slough Press, 2014); The Book of Wounded Sparrows (Texas Review Press, 2024), a finalist for the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award and longlisted for the National Book Award; and Las Horas Imposibles/The Impossible Hours (University of Arizona Press, 2025), winner of the Ambroggio Prize of the Academy of American Poets. He served as the 2018-2020 poet laureate of San Antonio, Texas, and as the 2025 Texas poet laureate. His visual work has been exhibited in various places, including the Mexican Cultural Institute in San Antonio, the El Paso Museum of Art, the Southwest School of Art, and the Brownsville Museum of Fine Art. He is the founder and director of the literature and arts festival VersoFrontera and publisher of Alabrava Press. He teaches literature and creative writing at Our Lady of the Lake University in San Antonio and was recently inducted into the Texas Institute of Letters.