Biography

Jack Lopez was born in Lynwood, California, a working-class suburb of Los Angeles.  As an adolescent, he moved to Huntington Beach, California, and was immensely influenced by the burgeoning surf culture.  In between his undergraduate studies and graduate school, he spent time in Hawaii where he surfed, in the Sierra Nevada and Cascade Mountains where he skied, and in southern California on the coast where he sailed.  To subsidize this lifestyle he has worked at ski resorts, in a sailboat factory, on a farm, in a brewery, in a cannery, and has built custom homes.  He has an MFA degree from the writing program at the University of California at Irvine.  His stories and essays have been in literary magazines such as The Massachusetts Review, Blue Mesa Review, Quarterly West, and in important Latino anthologies including Iguana Dreams, Pieces of the Heart, Mirrors Beneath The Earth, Currents from the Dancing River, and Muy Macho, to name a few.  He is the author of Cholos & Surfers: A Latino Family Album, an essay collection, and Snapping Lines, a story collection, and is a professor of English at Cal State Northridge, where he teaches creative writing.