Brandon Cesmat began publishing poetry while working as a clerk at a market in a farm community in the hills above his native Escondido, California. He later worked his way through college as a landscaper, bartender and recording technician, all of which prepared him well for a writing career. On the San Diego poetry scene, he co-hosted Resolution Readings, which was discontinued because its scheduling seemed to prompt troop deployments; later, Cesmat and co-host Terry Hertzler found no comfort upon discovering they weren't directly to blame.

His work has been anthologized in The San Diego Poetry Anthology, In Our Own Words: A Generation Defining Itself and Moon Won't Leave Me Alone: An Anthology of California Poets in the Schools. Cesmat's chapbook Ice Drum (Caernarvon Press) received a San Diego Book Award, as did his book Driven into the Shade (Poetic Matrix Press). He is currently producing Cruzando Lineas, a DVD anthology of poems from the San Diego-Tijuana region for the Center of Border & Regional Affairs.

Cesmat holds an MFA in Creative Writing from SDSU and currently lectures at CSU San Marcos and conducts writing workshops throughout San Diego County. He reads with the collective Acanto y Laurel in the Tijuana-San Diego region and always does his best to come home to Valley Center afterwards. His story collection Party Crasher is forthcoming from Caernarvon Press.

For more information, see www.csusm.edu/profe