Javier Sandoval is a poet of Rarámuri, Yoli, and Castilian descent from the Chihuahuan Desert of Mexico. He later immigrated to Wisconsin, where his mother sent him to school every day in a cowboy hat, before moving on to Texas, where he fell for the blues, and North Carolina, where his family spent three years in a homeless shelter.

Before turning to literature full-time, Javier consulted for minority-owned businesses, helped build a startup that received investment from Microsoft, and earned Brown University’s full-ride Leadership Endowed Award. There, he studied computer science alongside creative writing with Forrest Gander, C.D. Wright, and John Edgar Wideman. He later managed technology teams and performed stand-up comedy in Seattle before becoming a Graduate Council Fellow at the University of Alabama’s MFA program, where he also served as poetry editor of Black Warrior Review. He is now an Appleby Fellow in the University of Georgia’s English PhD and Native American Studies programs, where he studies Indigenous, Latino, and Black literature and film.

His poetry appears in Best American Poetry, The Missouri Review, Narrative, Five Points, Indiana Review, The Massachusetts Review, Gulf Coast, and elsewhere. He has been a finalist for awards from The Iowa Review, The Pinch, and Ninth Letter and is the recipient of swamp pink‘s Indigenous Writers Prize, Frontier Poetry‘s Global Poetry Prize, and fellowships from Tin House and the Alabama State Council on the Arts.

His chapbook, Blue Moon Looming (CutBank Books at the University of Montana), was named a Top Ten Debut by Latino Stories and praised by José Olivarez as “poetry for the unruly, and yes, the brilliant among us.” His novella, Cicada, Ladybug (Thought Catalog Books), became a Top 20 Amazon bestseller in Hispanic American fiction, and his magical-realist sitcom pilot, Fare Well, was a finalist for the Sundance Cultural Impact Residency.

But mostly, Javier is just trying to write another blues song, perfect his corn tortillas, or convince his lady, graphic novelist and writer Kalie Boyne, to stay outside for one more smoke.

You can follow him on IG at @JavierWantsCandy for tips, recs, and the occasional rant about language & snacks.