Carmen Tafolla was born in San Antonio, Texas on July 29, 1951 to a family with a history in San Antonio going back to the early eighteenth century. A resident of the West Side Barrio of the city, Carmen had a happy childhood immersed in Mexican American culture but was also keenly aware of the discrimination and injustice that those in her neighborhood faced. As part of a long history of neglect by the city, her neighborhood had a severe lack of books and literature, and Carmen was extremely eager to get her hands on anything and everything that she could read.

In her senior year of high school and first years of college at Texas Lutheran, the Chicano Movement opened Carmen’s eyes to the beauty and cultural significance of her Mexican American culture as she experienced Chicano art, poetry, literature and self-empowerment for the first time. After two years at Texas Lutheran, Carmen transferred to Austin College and completed her Bachelor’s of Arts in Education in Spanish and French and her Master’s of Arts in Education in just four years. The same year, 1973, Carmen became the director of the Mexican American Studies center at Texas Lutheran College. She was just 22 years old and worked diligently to determine what a Mexican American Studies center should be and how she could help the few Mexican American students who were enrolled at the college. It was here that she faced further discrimination due to her ethnicity, gender, and youth as a college professor.

Almost by accident, Carmen first publicly read her poetry in 1975 at the Festival de Flor y Canto 2 in Austin, Texas, and after a positive review, the writing world was opened to her in 1975. In 1977, she participated in the production of “Sonrisas” a bilingual television program for Mexican American children. She had her first tenure track position at California State, Fresno and received her PhD in 1982 in bilingual education at the University of Texas at Austin, using “Sonrisas” as material for her thesis project. Carmen was one of the groundbreaking professors who introduced multicultural considerations into Women’s Studies departments in the mid-1980s. In 1999, Carmen received the Art of Peace Award from St. Mary’s University for her production of works that contribute to peace, justice, and human understanding. Carmen was named the first Poet Laureate of the City of San Antonio in 2012 and became the State Poet Laureate of Texas in 2015 after recovering from breast cancer in 2013.

In the past several decades, Carmen has published five books of poetry, eight illustrated children’s books, seven television screenplays, one non-fiction volume, and one collection of short stories. She has performed and spoken around the world and is one of the most widely published Latina writers. She is currently an Associate Professor for Transformative Children’s Literature at the University of Texas at San Antonio and is working on her next book of poetry about the “Comadres of Cancer,” who helped her get through her cancer. She currently lives in San Antonio with her husband, daughter, and mother.