Alberto Álvaro Ríos is the author of eight books of poetry, three collections of short stories, and a memoir. His books of poems include The Smallest Muscle in the Human Body, Teodoro Luna's Two Kisses, The Lime Orchard Woman, The Warrington Poems, Five Indiscretions, and Whispering to Fool the Wind. His three collections of short stories are The Curtain of Trees, Pig Cookies, and The Iguana Killer. Capirotada is a memoir about growing up on the Mexican border.
Ríos was a finalist for the 2002 National Book Award for his last book of poems. He also wrote and delivered a poem at the inauguration of Arizona Governor, Janet Napolitano.
Ríos received the Western Literature Association's Distinguished Achievement Award, the Arizona Governor's Arts Award, fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts, the Walt Whitman Award, the Western States Book Award for Fiction, and six Pushcart Prizes in both poetry and fiction. His work has been included in The Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry and well over 175 other national and international literary anthologies.
Ríos is currently the Regents' Professor of English at Arizona State University.
