Sam Pereira was born in Los Banos, California in 1949, where he attended local schools, graduating from high school in 1967. He enrolled in what was then Fresno State College, with the intention of becoming a teacher.

On the way to the credential, he discovered writing and an abundance of writers. The BA was conferred; he got the teaching credential, spent a year doing nothing but writing, and then went forth to that great cathedral of words: The University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop. After two years of snow and other coldness, the MFA was his.

During all the years that followed, Sam has continued to write. His poems have appeared in American Poetry Review, Antioch Review, Cutbank, Nebraska Review, Poetry, and Prairie Schooner, as well as in many other literary journals. His work has also been included in several anthologies, among them Piecework: 19 Fresno Poets (Silver Skates Publishing, 1987), The Body Electric (W.W. Norton & Company, 2000), How Much Earth (Heyday Books, 2001), and Sinatra…but buddy I’m a kind of poem [a collection of writings about the iconic singer](Entasis Press, 2007).

There have been three books thus far: The Marriage of the Portuguese (L’Epervier Press, 1978), Brittle Water (Abattoir Editions/Penumbra Press, University of Nebraska at Omaha, 1987), and most recently A Café in Boca (Tebot Bach, 2007).

A reissue of The Marriage of the Portuguese, with an expanded section of poems written since the first edition, is scheduled to be published in the spring of 2012 by Tagus Press at UMass, Dartmouth. His newest manuscript, Dusting on Sunday, will be published by Tebot Bach sometime in 2012-2013.