Save the Date

Friday, November 6, 2026
McNay Art Museum
San Antonio, Texas

An evening celebrating literary excellence, community, and the power of words.

Jim LaVilla-Havelin is the author of eight books of poetry, including recently released Mesquites Teach Us to Bend (Lamar University Literary Press, 2025) and A Thoreau Book (Alabrava Press, 2025). He is the co-editor for Houston University Press’ UNSUNG MASTERS volume on Rosemary Catacalos, and Literary Executor for Catacalos’ estate, assembling her collected poems for a volume, Sing!

Educator, editor, and community arts activist, LaVilla-Havelin, was the Poetry Editor for the San Antonio Express-News for over 10 years. He has been the Coordinator of National Poetry Month in San Antonio for 18 years (as of 2025). In 2019, he was awarded the City of San Antonio’s Distinction in the Arts for Literary Arts.

A creative writing teacher for over fifty years, in addition to his 12 years of teaching at The Cyndi Taylor Krier Juvenile Correctional Treatment Center for Gemini Ink’s Partners Program – LaVilla-Havelin teaches senior citizens in the Go Arts Program through Bihl Haus Cultural Arts, and has been the Poet In Residence at the Young Women’s Leadership Academy, teaching high school students. He was Gemini Ink’s 2020 Writers in Communities Teacher of the Year.

Venue: McNay Art Museum

TBA

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