OLLU to Host Evening Honoring Texas Poet Laureate Octavio Quintanilla

Friday, October 17, 2025 | 6 p.m. | St. Anne's Courtyard

Our Lady of the Lake University (OLLU) will host a special evening honoring Octavio Quintanilla, recently named the 2025-2026 Texas Poet Laureate, on Friday, October 17, at 6 p.m. in St. Anne's Courtyard. The event will feature a public reading and conversation celebrating Quintanilla's literary and artistic achievements.

Quintanilla, a professor of English at OLLU, is the author of acclaimed poetry collections including If I Go Missing (Slough Press, 2014), The Book of Wounded Sparrows (Texas Review Press, 2024) - longlisted for the National Book Award - and Las Horas Imposibles / The Impossible Hours (University of Arizona Press, 2025), winner of the 2024 Ambroggio Prize from the Academy of American Poets.

A celebrated visual artist, Quintanilla's Frontextos (visual poems) have been exhibited in prestigious venues such as the Mexican Cultural Institute in San Antonio, the El Paso Museum of Art, and the Brownsville Museum of Fine Art, with permanent installations at San Antonio's Labor Plaza and Poet's Pointe.

Beyond his creative work, Quintanilla is the founder and director of the VersoFrontera literature and arts festival, publisher of Alabrava Press, and a former Poet Laureate of San Antonio. He was recently inducted into the Texas Institute of Letters and received the Nebrija Creadores Scholarship, completing a residency at the Instituto Franklin at Alcalá University in Spain.

"Octavio Quintanilla is a tireless advocate of the arts, of Our Lady of the Lake University, of poetry specifically. Octavio travels all over the state giving readings, and his VersoFrontera poetry event is ever expanding," said Wallis Sanborn, Department Chair. "Octavio teaches, writes, publishes, and he serves students, discipline, the University, and community."

The event reflects OLLU's enduring commitment to literature, art, and community engagement, honoring not only one of Texas' most distinguished poets but also one of OLLU's own faculty members.

The event is free and open to the public.