Efren Laya Cruzada is a poet who was born in the Philippines and raised in Alice, Texas. He studied English and American Literature and Creative Writing at New York University. He is the author of Grand Flood: a poem. His poems have been published in several journals in the US and internationally. Efren was shortlisted for the La Piccioletta Barca Prize, a finalist for the “Tickled Pink” Ekphrastic Review Contest, and a semi-finalist for the Driftwood Press Short Story Contest. He was also the recipient of a Best of Net Nomination.

Efren’s primary focus is aesthetics and the ways in which aesthetic sensations can be manifested through text. Recent writings have included poetry about the nature and cities from his travels as well as fiction writing from a Filipino-American perspective. He enjoys reading poetry and text from different cultures throughout history, and he has been particularly drawn to French Symbolists, ancient Chinese poetry, the Romantics, Anglo-Saxon literature, and Philippine literature. He attempts to contextualize all of these influences through the lens of contemporary, modernist, and postmodernist writing.

Enjoying writing in its many forms, he has also written work in the science fiction and fantasy genres. Efren has experimented with all types of structures and forms, from writing one-word poems to delirious, surrealistic prose poetry.