While in Chicago, Igloria was an active member of PINTIG, a Filipino-American cultural and theatre group; she was a member of PINTIG's cultural and education committee. She was a Visiting Humanities Scholar in 1996 at the Center for Philippine Studies at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. She also taught briefly at De La Salle University where she became the Graduate Programs Coordinator and Senior Associate for Poetry at the Bienvenido N. Santos Creative Writing Center at De La Salle University. She has appeared in numerous anthologies and journals including the very first electronic anthology of Women's Poetry Fire On Her Tongue, Language for a New Century, ed. Tina Chang, Ravi Shankar, and Nathalie Handal, Letters to the World: Poems from the Wom-po Listserv], ed. by Moira Richards, Rosemary Starace, and Lesley Wheeler, Poetry, Crab Orchard Review, The Missouri Review, Indiana Review, The North American Review, Natural Bridge, Poetry East, Smartish Pace, The Asian Pacific American Journal, and TriQuarterly. She edited the anthology Not Home, But Here: Writing from the Filipino Diaspora. She has published 13 books and 3 chapbooks to date. Luisa is a tenured Professor of English. She served as Director of the MFA Creative Writing Program, Department of English from 2009-2015 Old Dominion University.
Personal life
Her husband is Ruben V. Igloria. She has four daughters: Jennifer Patricia A. Cariño, Julia Katrina A. Cariño], Josephine Anne A. Cariño, and Gabriela Aurora Igloria.
Awards
She is highly decorated for her expanse of work. Luisa is an eleven-time recipient of the Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature in three genres ; the Palanca award is the Philippines' highest literary distinction. In 1996 she became the first Filipina woman of letters installed in the Palanca Literary Hall of Fame. She is also the recipient of the 1988 Black Warrior Literary Award from the literary magazine of the University of Alabama; the Charles Goodnow Endowed Award for Creative Writing from the Chicago Bar Association in 1993 and 1995; the 1998 Illinois Arts Council Literary Award and the George Kent Prize for Poetry. Recent awards include the 2015 Resurgence Prize for Ecopoetry], the 2014 May Swenson Poetry Prize from Utah State University Press, the 2009 Ernest Sandeen Prize in Poetry from the University of Notre Dame Press, the 2007 49th Parallel Prize in Poetry from the Bellingham Review, the 2007 James Hearst Poetry Prize, the 2006 National Writers Union Poetry Prize, the 2006 Stephen Dunn Award for Poetry; the first Sylvia Clare Brown Fellowship, Ragdale Foundation ; Finalist for the 2005 George Bogin Memorial Award for Poetry ; the 2005 Richard Lemon Poetry Fellowship to the Napa Valley Writers Conference; First Prize in the 2004 Fugue poetry contest ; Finalist in the 2003 Larry Levis Editors Prize for Poetry from The Missouri Review; Finalist in the 2003 Dorset Prize for Poetry ; a 2003 partial fellowship to the Summer Literary Seminars in St. Petersburg; three Pushcart Prize nominations and the 1998 George Kent Award for Poetry.
Books and publications
Since November 20, 2010, Luisa has been writing a poem a day for her daily writing project.
Other works may be found through From The Fishhouse and her website.
