Type O Negative

Joel Barraquiel Tan is the Director of Community Engagement at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, Ca. His publications include El Canto de Animal (Noice Press, 2006) and Monster- Poems (Noice Press, 2002). Tan has been nominated for Lambda Literary Award, Best Anthology, 1998 and his work is currently being used in an Asian American Studies literature course at San Francisco State University, New York University, and Mills College. Joel Tan received his M.F.A. in Creative Writing and Literature from Antioch University in 2004, and his B.A. in Ethnic Studies at University of California, Berkeley in 2002. He is fluent in Tagalog, Spanish and English. Tan has served as Board Vice-President at the Center for Disease Control and Association of Schools of Public Health’s Institute of HIV Prevention Leadership Alumni Association. He is also the Founding Board President of the Center for Disease Control and Association of Schools of Public Health’s Institute of HIV Prevention Leadership Alumni Association (2002-2003). He has received the San Francisco Arts Commission Individual Artist Grant for “savage, i”-2006, the Meet the Composers Grant, for “savage, i”-2005, a grant from the NEA for “Sons”-2004 and a grant from the California Council for Humanities for “Sons”- 2004. His poem “manila zoo” was the 1st Place Winner of Spoon River Poetry Review’s 2004 Best Poem, Fall 2004, Volume XXIX, Number 2. Tan has also received the Eloise Klein Healy Talent Award-2002, Antioch University Scholarship-2002, Idyllwild Arts Scholarship-2002, Markowski-Leach: Horizons Foundation, 2000, Filipino American Leadership Scholarship, 2000, HIV Prevention Leadership Fellow- 1999, and the Gay Role Model Award: Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Community Services Center and Genre Magazine, 1995.