Ana Castillo is a well-known novelist, poet, editor, translator, playwright, and independent scholar who was born in Chicago. Dr. Castillo has an M.A from the University of Chicago and a Ph.D from the University of Bremen, and an honorary doctorate from Colby College. Her work touches upon themes that include sexuality, gender, issues of power, and race. she has the ability to point out certain issues that exist within society and portray them through her writing, in a beautiful way. Dr. Castillo's writing has appeared on periodicals and online articles such as Oxygen and Salon. Her writing has sparked many scholarly investigations and publications. Her award winning and best selling novels include: So Far From God, The Guardians and Peel My Love Like an Onion. She is also known for her poetry that includes: I Ask the Impossible, and a novel she wrote called Sapogonia which was a New York Notable Book of the Year. In addition to being a great writer she is also the editor of La Tolteca, an art and literary program that promotes a world without borders and censorship. Dr. Castillo in 2014, was the Lund-Gil Endowed Chair at Dominican University, River Forest, IL and was also a faculty at the Bread Loaf Summer Program in 2015. Nevertheless, she was also the "first Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz Endowed Chair at DePaul University, The Martin Luther King, Jr. Distinguished Visiting Scholar post at M.I.T and the Poet-in-Residence at Westminster College in Utah in 2012." She has also received an American Book award from the Before Columbus Foundation for her novel, The Mixquiahuala Letter. However, she has also won awards like the Carl Sandburg Award, fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts in fiction and poetry, and the Mountains and Plains Booksellers Award. In 1998 she was given the Sor Juana Achievement Award by a Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum in Chicago. She has won multiple awards throughout her career mainly because of her hard work and dedication. In 2015 she was given the Lifetime Achievement Award in literature for her " “literary contributions to the Latino/a community, and commitment to the betterment of our younger generations."

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