Steven R. Perez
Filed under: Authors
Steven Perez's prison memoirs and personal essays have been published online by American Short Fiction, PEN America, Literature Hub, and The Texas Observer. In print, his work has been featured in the University of Texas at Austin's 2016-17 Pen City Writers Literary Journal. His nonfiction is also spotlighted in the anthology entitled Variations from an Undisclosed Location (from PEN America).
His writing has won the Texas Insider Prize twice, PEN America's Fielding A. Dawson and L'Engle Rahman Prizes. "Process: An Excerpt", though not published, recently merited an Honorable Mention in this year's 94th Annual Writer's Digest Writing Competition, in which there were 3,800 submissions from writers from 45 countries.
He's been a Fellow of the University of Texas at Austin for six years and has been studying creative writing under author and professor Deb Olin Unferth for nine years. He is currently awaiting a prison transfer for enrollment with the University of Houston-Clear Lake to earn his BA and MA in humanities after which he plans to earn a doctorate of jurisprudence.
Steven has been in prison for 19 years on a 60-year sentence. He's located at the Connally Unit near Kenedy, Texas. He's from Corpus Christi, where his family is patiently waiting for him to come home. He is currently seeking an agent for his debut book-length memoir. He enjoys lying in his bunk and talking to his daughter, mother, and father on his tablet phone.
Website: https://pen.org/profile/steven-reynaldo-perez/
Winning Entry: Process: An Excerpt
Contest Won: Tom Howard/John H. Reid Fiction & Essay Contest 2025, Honorable Mention
