A nationally prominent spoken word artist from San Francisco, published poet, playwright, and award winning novelist, who also holds an MFA in Creative Writing from San Francisco State. Paul S. Flores was raised on the Tijuana / San Diego border, and issues of immigration, border experience and Latino identity are central to his work. A versatile artist and a key collaborator in many ground-breaking theater projects, Flores’ playwriting and stage performance credits include REPRESENTA! (Dir. Danny Hoch) Fear of a Brown Planet (Dir. Tony Garcia), The Fruitvale Project, and No Man’s Land. He received the PEN Oakland / Josephine Miles National Literary Award in 2003 for his novel Along the Border Lies(ZYZZYVA First Novel) and has twice received the National Performance Network Creation Commission (2004, 2006), a San Francisco Arts Commission Individual Artist Grant (2006) and a grant from the California Center for Cultural Innovation in 2007. Flores has over ten years experience creating, organizing and producing highly successful educational youth poetry programs in spoken word and literacy development as the former program director of Youth Speaks Inc. Flores has been an invited lecturer and featured performer at over 100 high schools and universities in the United States and has performed at the National Hip-Hop Festival in Havana, Cuba, America Libre Hip-Hop Festival in Mexico City, Hip-Hop Theater Festival: Bay Area, and was featured on Russell Simmons Presents: Def Poetry Jam on HBO. Flores is an original member of the San Francisco based performance ensemble Los Delicados Poetas del Sol, and founding artistic director of Chicano Messengers of Spoken Word. Paul Flores also conducts youth Violence Prevention and Gang Awareness trainings for the Spanish Speaking Unity Council and the City of Oakland Department of Human Services Measure Y Anti-Violence Campaign.