James Tyner has recently published a chapbook, The Ghetto Exorcist (Autumn House Press), and also appeared in the anthology The Working Poet, by the same publisher. He was the winner of the 2009 Coal Hill Review Chapbook Contest and a finalist for Notre Dame University’s 2008 Andrés Montoya Poetry Prize. His poem “At a Barbeque for R.C. One Week After He is Out of Iraq” was nominated for a Pushcart prize.
Born in Santa Monica (1975), Tyner moved with his family to Fresno when he was a teenager and then attended CSU Fresno where he earned an MFA in poetry. His MFA thesis, Baptized in Dirt, contains poems about the violence in neighborhoods where he grew up in L.A. and Fresno and about Tyner’s subsequent path toward Pacificsm. Baptized in Dirt was voted the best MFA thesis in poetry of 2009 at CSU Fresno.
In his position as Senior Library Assistant at the Fresno County Library Clovis Branch, Tyner has organized a number of poetry events. Since 2005, he has hosted “Poets in the Library,” a series of readings that coincides with National Poetry Month in April. The readings feature poets as well as fiction and non-fiction writers from around the Valley. He has also hosted writing workshops and poetry readings at over 10 different library branches.
Tyner lives in Fresno with his wife and their first child, born in February.
