Oliver de la Paz was born in Manila, Philippines, and raised in Ontario, Oregon. He received his MFA from Arizona State University and has taught creative writing at Arizona State University, Gettysburg College, Utica College, Western Washington University, the College of the Holy Cross, and the Low-Res MFA Program at Pacific Lutheran University. His work has appeared in journals such as Quarterly West, North American Review, Third Coast, Asian Pacific American Journal, Poetry, New England Review, Tinhouse, in the anthology Asian American Poetry: The Next Generation .and elsewhere. Names Above Houses, a book of his prose and verse, was a winner of the 2000 Crab Orchard Award Series and was published by Southern Illinois University Press in 2001. His second book,Furious Lullaby, was published in 2007 by Southern Illinois University Press. And his third book, Requiem for the Orchard won the University of Akron Prize in 2009. Additionally he authored Post Subject: A Fable and co-edited A Face to Meet the Faces: Contemporary Persona Poetry with the author Stacy Lynn Brown. His most recent book is The Boy in the Labyrinth, published by the University of Akron Press which allegorically chronicles parenting sons on the Autism Spectrum through parable, myth, and academic questionnaires.