About

Joshua Escobar performs as DJ Ashtrae + Little Piñata, and is the author of the chapbooks Califorkya Voltage (No, Dear/Small Anchor) and xxox fm (Doublecross Press). Their first full-length poetry collection Bareback Nightfall launched Summer 2020 from Noemi Press and Letras Latinas in their Akrilica Series, and was a finalist for the 2021 California Book Award. In 2023 they were the inaugural recipient of the Bo Huston Award. Demons of Eminence, their debut novel launches December 10th 2024 (Fellow Traveler's Series). 

They are the Director of Creative Writing and Title V Director of the Multimodal Lab at Santa Barbara City College. They were awarded the Faculty Excellence Award in 2023 for their teaching, campus projects, and community collaborations. At SBCC Escobar has developed the Peer Tutoring and Mentoring Project, Latinx Hertiage Month, the student magazine Open Fruit, RISE Program, as well as numerous events at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art's Education Department. 

They write about queerness, nightlife, and southern California's Inland Empire. The poet Leila Ortiz calls their poetry "out of context and close to the heart."  

Escobar (he/they) has received fellowships from Shandaken: Storm King and CantoMundo. Escobar was the Dean's Fellow in Writing at the Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts at Bard College. In addition to an M.F.A. from Bard College, Escobar holds a B.A. in English, B.A. in Urban Planning, and Master of Journalism degree from the University of California at Berkeley.