William Archila

William Archila was born in Santa Ana, El Salvador, in 1968 and immigrated to the United States with his family in 1980. He received an MFA from the University of Oregon.

Archila is the author of four poetry collections: Canícula/Dog Days (Red Hen Press, 2026); S is For (Black Lawrence Press, 2025), winner of the 2023 Philip Levine Prize for Poetry; The Gravedigger’s Archaeology (Red Hen Press, 2015), winner of the Letras Latinas/Red Hen Poetry Prize; and The Art of Exile (Bilingual Press/Editorial Bilingüe, 2009), which received a 2010 International Latino Book Award. 

Archila has been the recipient of numerous fellowships, including the Alan Collins Fellowship in Prose from Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference and the Emerging Writer Fellowship from Grub Street Center for Creative Writing.

Archila is an associate editor at Tía Chucha Press. He lives in Los Angeles.