Melinda Palacio Installation as the City of Santa Barbara 2023-2025 Poet Laureate at Santa Barbara City Hall on April 18, 2023 in Santa Barbara, CA. (Photo By Rod Rolle) Ms. Palacio, an internationally-lauded poet, author, and speaker, will serve as Santa Barbara’s first Chicana Poet Laureate. Her chapbook, Folsom Lockdown, won Kulupi Press’ Sense of Place award. Her novel, Ocotillo Dreams, received the Mariposa Award for Best First Book at the 2012 International Latino Book Awards, as well as a PEN Oakland-Josephine Miles Award for Excellence in Literature. Her full-length poetry collection, How Fire Is a Story, Waiting, received First Prize in Poetry at the International Latino Book Awards. Her work has also been featured on the Academy of American Poets’ Poem-a-Day Program. Locally, Melinda received first place in Poetry at the 2003 Santa Barbara Writers Conference.
