Speaker Biography:

Domingo Martinez is the New York Times Best Selling author of The Boy Kings of Texas and was a finalist for The National Book Award in 2012.  The Boy Kings of Texas is a Gold Medal Winner of the Independent Publishers Book Award, a Non-Fiction Finalist for The Washington State Book Awards, and was nominated for a 2013 Pushcart Prize.

 The Boy Kings of Texas was recently “greenlit” for an HBO series through Salma Hayek’s production company, Ventana Rosa.

His work has appeared in Epiphany Literary Journal, Seattle Weekly, Texas Monthly, The New Republic, Saveur Magazine, Huisache Literary Magazine and he is a regular contributor to This American Life. He has also appeared on NPR’s All Things Considered and The Diane Rehm show, and was the recipient of the Bernard De Voto Fellowship for Non-Fiction at Bread Loaf Writer’s Colony in 2013.  Mr. Martinez is also a fundraiser and spokesperson for 826 Seattle, the literacy project founded by Dave Eggers.

His new memoir, My Heart is a Drunken Compass, will be published by Globe Pequot Press in Fall 2014.

Dave Eggers has given this endorsement:

“Domingo Martinez is an essential new American voice, and  My Heart is a Drunken Compass delivers on the promise of The Boy Kings of Texas. In a life of chaos and pain he manages to find grace, and humor, and — contrary to the title of this book — real moral purpose. This is a riveting book.”