Diana Delgado

Literary Director
No pronouns: Diana or D (Dee)
dianadelgado@arizona.edu

Diana Marie Delgado curates and oversees the Reading & Lecture Series and Classes & Workshops at the Poetry Center. 

Diana Marie Delgado is the Literary Director of the University of Arizona Poetry Center and has more than twenty years of experience working in not-for-profits that advance social justice and the arts. She has worked at a range of organizations, including The Clinton Foundation, Coalition for Hispanic Family Services, and now the University of Arizona Poetry Center. A published poet, her first collection, Tracing the Horse, was a New York Times Noteworthy Pick and follows the coming-of-age of a young Mexican-American woman trying to make sense of who she is amidst a family and community weighted by violence and addiction. Her chapbook, Late-Night Talks with Men I Think I Trust, was the 2018 Center for Book Arts winner and she has published poetry in Ploughshares, Ninth Letter, New York Times Magazine, Colorado Review and Tin House. Her literary interests are rooted in her experiences growing up Chicana in the San Gabriel Valley of Southern California. She has extensive experience working both in and with communities color, after spending more than a decade working and writing in New York City.

Delgado, the first in her family to graduate high school and attend college, transferred from ​Mount San Antonio ​community college to UC Riverside, where she received her bachelor’s degree in Creative Writing, with an emphasis in Poetry. She possesses a Master of Fine Arts from Columbia University and her selected honors and awards include grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, Hedgbrook, and Breadloaf. She is a CORO leadership fellow and member of the Iyengar Foundation. A playwright as well, Delgado had directed plays at both INTAR and La MaMa. She is a member of the CantoMundo and Macondo writing communities.