BIO
liz gonzález is the author of the creative nonfiction chapbook San Bernardino's First Our Lady of Guadalupe Church: The First 11 Years (Bamboo Dart Press, forthcoming); the multigenre book Dancing in the Santa Ana Winds: Poems y Cuentos New and Selected (Los Nietos Press, 2018); and the poetry collection Beneath Bone (Manifest Press, 2000). Her writing appears in various journals and anthologies, including Inlandia: A Literary Journey, HTI Open Plaza, Air/Light, Poets & Writers Magazine, and the anthologies Transformation: A Women Who Submit Anthology and San Bernardino Singing.
Her honors include a 2023 California Arts Council Individual Artist Fellowship; the Arts Council for Long Beach Incite / Insight Award for her work in the North Long Beach through Uptown Word & Arts, the literary and arts series she co-founded with Jorge Martin; an Arts Council for Long Beach Professional Artist Fellowship; an Elizabeth George Foundation Artistic Grant; an Irvine Fellowship at the Lucas Artists Residency Program; and residencies at Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts, Hedgebrook, and Macondo's Casa Azul.
liz serves on the Inlandia Institute Cultura Without Borders Steering Committee. She is a member of Macondo Writers Workshop and Women Who Submit. A creative writing instructor at the UCLA Extension Writers' Program for over twenty years, she also leads community writing workshops. A San Bernardino Valley native, liz has lived in California all her life except for one year when she served as the 1999/2000 Writer in Residence at the Phoenix College Creative Writing Program. Her roots in San Bernardino reach back to her maternal second great-grandparents, who arrived in the city in 1910, if not earlier. Her current work explores U.S. Mexican history through the lens of her multigenerational family's experiences.
A literary and arts activist for over 30 years, liz has mentored writers; organized literary readings and conducted creative writing workshops at a variety of settings, such as public libraries, community centers, colleges and universities, and elementary schools; participated on literary panels; and served as a judge for creative writing awards, book awards, artist fellowships, and a writing residency. With her spouse Jorge, she founded, Uptown Word & Arts, promoting literacy and supporting the arts from 2015-2019. In 2016, she founded Women's Write Inn—a rotating group of women poets and writers who wrote together, workshopped, and supported each other. Throughout the pandemic, she pivoted the group to weekly Zoom sessions, fostering a connected community.
