author bio

John Paul Jaramillo was born and raised in the Southern Colorado “Steel City” of Pueblo, CO. He studied composition and literature at the University of Southern Colorado, and at Oregon State University he earned his MFA in creative writing (fiction). Currently, Jaramillo works as Professor of English in the Arts and Humanities Department of Lincoln Land Community College–Springfield, Illinois.

His stories have appeared in the Acentos Review, Palabra, A Magazine of Chicano and Latino Literary Art and Somos en Escrito—most recently in La Casita Grande Lounge and Nat Brut #9. He is the author of the story collection The House of Order, named a 2013 Int’l Latino Book Award Finalist, and the novel in stories Little Mocos from Twelve Winters Press. In 2013 Latino Boom: An Anthology of U.S. Latino Literature listed Jaramillo as one of its Top 10 New Latino Authors to Watch and Read. 

His writing explores the Colorado steel industry and neighborhoods as well as the link between family, trauma, and place. As Mary Jean Porter writes, “Jaramillo is writing about working in Southern Colorado farm fields, driving and drinking beer and smoking pot; visiting family members in the state penitentiary; about tattooed pregnant girls, dirty kids in laundromats and their desperate mothers, back through several generations. What saves these stories is the grace in which they are written.”