Former Lund-Gill Chair Ana Castillo Honored with Lifetime Achievement Award

Ana Castillo, an acclaimed Latinx writer and longtime friend of Dominican University, accepted the Fuller Lifetime Achievement Award from the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame before an audience that included members of the Dominican community.

Castillo, Lund-Gill Chair of the Rosary College of Arts and Sciences in 2014-15, was presented with the prestigious award honoring the literary contributions of exemplary Chicago writers on March 24 at the American Writers Museum in downtown Chicago.

A group of Dominican student writers and artists attended the event, of which Dominican University was a recognized partner. The evening also featured remarks from English Professor and Department Chair Jane Hseu, Ph.D, who initially proposed that Castillo be invited to the university as Lund-Gill Chair in 2014.

“We are celebrating Ana’s work especially today because she is a distinctly rooted-in-Chicago writer,” said Hseu, who has taught various Chicago-based works by Castillo in her U.S. Literature classes at Dominican.

The Fuller Award, Hseu said, “is a prestigious award and I’m glad (Dominican) can be part of it.”

Castillo, who was born and raised in Chicago, but is now based in New Mexico, is known as one of the prominent voices of Chicana literature, her impassioned poems and novels tackling themes of race, politics, feminism, love, contemporary world issues and the Latinx experience.

Her poems “Like the people of Guatemala, I want to be free of these memories” (2000), “These Times” (2018), and “I Ask the Impossible” (2001) were read during the Fuller Award ceremony.

“All writers, regardless of age or background, are always so appreciative and happy when our work is recognized, but this was something special for me personally because it’s my hometown,” Castillo said of the Fuller Award. “I was aware of the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame organization, so I was very happy the day I received the call and was told I was the awardee for the next award.”

A recipient of numerous awards and accolades, Castillo is the author of eight novels, seven collections of poetry, two compilations of essays and a book of short stories. She began her literary career as a poet with a self-published collection of poems entitled Otro Canto in 1977 and is currently completing a new book of short fiction entitled Doña Cleanwell Leaves Home.

Castillo last visited Dominican’s campus in September 2021 as the keynote speaker of a Latine Heritage Month event. She discussed and signed copies of her newest book of poetry, My Book of the Dead, which was described in a review by Chicago Literary Hall of Fame Founding Executive Director Donald Evans as “a meditation on morality” — that of humans and of Earth.

While serving as the Lund-Gill Chair during the 2014-15 academic year, Castillo taught a class in memoir writing called Writing Life Stories. She encouraged her students to tell their stories “with honesty.”

“I identified with some of the young students,” she shared. “Many of them came from working class backgrounds, many were first generation to go to college, so there was an affinity with their earnest dedication to what they were doing. Nothing was taken for granted — at least by the students I had experiences with.”

“She sees in her students herself,” noted Hseu. “She feels connected to the mission of the university.”

Randy Albers, a member of the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame Board of Directors and co-chair of the Fuller Award Selection Committee, said Castillo was chosen for this year’s honor based not only on her lifetime literary contributions, but because she “stands as a force for justice and equality for all.”

“As people from Dominican no doubt know, she is a thoughtful, passionate, and committed writer, teacher, activist, feminist, learner, and thinker who models all of the humanistic qualities that we look for in true leaders,” Albers said.

Evans, of the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame, noted Castillo’s nearly 50-year literary career as a poet, novelist, short story writer, essayist and scholar.

“She’s produced a prodigious and varied library that explores … issues timeless and of our times,” he said. “Ana Castillo writes with beauty, nuance, and power, and so diverse is her approach that it's difficult to pinpoint, in any given work, the manner in which you, as a reader, are charmed, moved, or riveted.”

Evans also pointed to Castillo’s Chicago ties.

“Ana Castillo was born and raised and largely educated in Chicago, and the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame's Fuller Award recognizes the lifetime achievements of our city's greatest living literary writers," he said. “Chicago played a large role in Ana Castillo's development and Ana Castillo played a large role in shaping her Chicago.”

Castillo is the 12th recipient of the Fuller Award. Later this year, the award will be presented to Chicago journalist Rick Kogan.

Castillo, in closing remarks, reminded those gathered that “each and every voice is important.”

“Don’t ever think your voice or your vote or your letter to your local official or your $10 or $100 to a cause that is important to you isn’t important,” she said. “We are all important, however we decide to do it.”

(Photo by Don Seeley/Chicago Literary Hall of Fame)