Fresno writer Hermelinda Hernandez Monjaras, a two-time Fresno State alumna, has won a Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellowship from the Poetry Foundation. Among the largest awards offered to young poets in the United States, the $27,000 prize is intended to support exceptional U.S. poets between 21 and 31 years of age.
Hernandez Monjaras earned her Master of Fine Arts degree in creative writing this past May, and she was named the Graduate Dean’s Medalist for the College of Arts and Humanities. A transfer student from Fresno City College, she earned her bachelor’s degree in creative writing from Fresno State in 2021.
During her time as a graduate student, Hernandez Monjaras worked as an editorial assistant for the university’s Philip Levine Prize for Poetry book contest and as a teaching associate for the English Department. She is widely published in literary journals, and has poems forthcoming in the HarperCollins anthology “Undocupoetics: An Introduction.”
