Writer, Performer, Educator
“Write what should not be forgotten.”
— Isabel Allende
Darrel Alejandro Holnes is the author of Stepmotherland (Notre Dame Press, 2022) & Migrant Psalms (Northwestern Press, 2021). Holnes is an Afro-Panamanian American writer, performer, and educator. His writing has been published in English, Spanish, and French in literary journals, anthologies, and other books worldwide and online. He also writes for the stage. Most of his writing centers on love, family, race, immigration, and joy. He works as a college professor in New York City, NY.
Writing for the Page
Holnes is the author of Stepmotherland, published by Notre Dame Press in 2022, and Migrant Psalms, published by Northwestern University Press in 2021. He is the co-author of Prime from Sibling Rivalry Press, an Over the Rainbow List selection by the American Library Association, and the co-editor of Happiness, The Delight-Tree: An Anthology of Contemporary International Poetry, published to commemorate the United Nations International Day of Happiness. He is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Creative Writing, the CP Cavafy Prize from Poetry International, the Andres Montoya Poetry Prize from Letras Latinas, and the Drinking Gourd Poetry Prize from Northwestern University Press. His poems have been published in American Poetry Review, Poetry Magazine, Callaloo, Best American Experimental Writing, and elsewhere in print and online.
Writing for the Stage
Holnes is a playwright and screenwriter. His plays have received productions or development opportunities at the Kennedy Center for the Arts American College Theater Festival (KCACTF), The Brick Theater, Kitchen Theater Company, Pregones Theater/PRTT, Primary Stages, and elsewhere. He is a member of the Lincoln Center Director’s Lab, Civilians R&D Group, Page 73’s Interstate 73 Writers Workshop, and other groups. His plays, Starry Night, and Bayano, were both finalists for the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center’s National Playwrights Conference, the Princess Grace Award in Playwriting, and several other awards and honors. His other plays include Black Feminist Video Game, which was produced by The Civilians for 59E59 Theaters’ Plays in Place, Center Theater Group, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, and the Williams Center for the Arts at Lafayette College. His play Franklin Ave was featured in The Sol Project’s Sol Fest and as a part of the Sin Muros Festival at Stages Houston.
Making Music & Performance
Holnes studied classical and jazz saxophone at the Instituto Nacional de Música de Panamá, part of the Instituto Nacional de Arts y Cultura (INAC) in his native country of Panama. He has since produced a jazz album, and he continues collaborating with musicians in New York with whom he writes and performs music in his spare time. He collaborates with dancers and choreographers to create a variety of performance pieces and he has performed his poetry at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe, Bowery Poetry Club, Lillian Vernon Creative Writers House, and elsewhere nationwide and overseas.
Educating in the Arts
Professor Holnes is an Assistant Professor of English at Medgar Evers College, a senior college of the City University of New York (CUNY), and he is a faculty member of the Gallatin School of Individualized Study at New York University (NYU). He mostly teaches creative writing and playwriting. He is also an affiliate faculty member of the CUNY Graduate Center where he teaches ethnographic research methods.
He has presented work at the Association for Writers and Writing Programs (AWP) annual conferences and the American Folklore Society’s (AFS) annual meeting, among other academic conferences. He has also taught theater courses and creative writing workshops in various summer programs worldwide. He is certified to teach online.
Supporting the Arts
Holnes is an advocate for the arts and the founder of the Greater Good Commission. This initiative awards mini-grants to Latinx/e playwrights whose commissioned short plays are later presented at the Greater Good Theater Festival. This initiative’s first round focused on Afro/Black-Latinx/e playwrights, and the second round will focus on Latinx/e LGBTQIA+ playwrights of all races.
“I believe that the most important single thing, beyond discipline and creativity is daring to dare.”
— Maya Angelou
