ABOUT MARCOS

Marcos McPeek Villatoro is the son of a Salvadoran mother and an Appalachian father. He is the author of the Romilia Chacón crime novels. The Los Angeles Times Book Review listed his Home Killings as a Best Book of 2001. It won the Silver Medal from Foreword Magazine and First Prize in the Latino Literary Hall of Fame. The other Romilia novels include Minos and A Venom Beneath the Skin.

Random House publishes the Romilia Chacón crime fiction novels in mass-market paperback (under Dell). Germany, Japan, Russia and Brazil have translated and published all the Romilia books.

His autobiographical novel The Holy Spirit of My Uncle's Cojones was an Independent Publishers Book Award Finalist and nominated for the Pushcart Prize.

His other books include They Say that I am Two (poems), On Tuesday, When the Homeless Disappeared (poems), A Fire in the Earth (novel), and the memoir Walking to La Milpa: Living in Guatemala with Armies, Demons, Abrazos, and Death.

In the 80s and early 90s, Villatoro lived in Guatemala, Nicaragua, and Alabama, doing grassroots community work in Central America and with migrant farm workers. After graduating from the Iowa Writers' Workshop in 1998, he and his family moved to California, where he holds the Fletcher Jones Endowed Chair in Writing at Mount St. Mary's College. He's also a regular commentator for NPR and the local PBS affiliate KCET of Los Angeles, the latter for which he won the Emmy.

Villatoro lives with his wife and four children in Los Angeles. The six of them recently returned from El Salvador, where they spent the summer of 2009 filming the documentary Tamale Road.

Marcos travels throughout the country, doing readings and lectures on various topics, including (but not restricted to) Latino-ness, Appalachian-ness, fiction, poetry, nonfiction, storytelling, and the importance of la gallina india in the making of a good tamal.