Tim Z. Hernandez is an award-winning author, investigative researcher, and documentary filmmaker. As a writer, his work includes poetry, fiction, memoir, and screenplays–many of which have received international acclaim. His work has been featured in the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, C-Span, and highlighted in NPR’s Latino USA, All Things Considered and Alt.Latino.

In 2013, Public Radio International hailed his book, Mañana Means Heaven, as a Book of the Year, and he is a two time recipient of the International Latino Book Award in two separate genres–fiction (2014), and nonfiction (2025). His debut collection of poetry, Skin Tax received the 2006 American Book Award, and his debut novel, Breathing, In Dust received the 2010 Premio Aztlan Prize. His book, All They Will Call You, is a genre bending work of non-fiction based on the song by Woody Guthrie, “Deportee (Plane Wreck at Los Gatos).” The second installment of the series, They Call You Back, a memoir based on his search, was released Fall 2024. His most recent collection of poetry, “Some of the Light: New & Selected Poems (2023)” was featured in People Magazine. 

On January 29, 2018, Hernandez was honored by the California State Senate in a recognition ceremony that took place at the state capital in Sacramento, CA. The ceremony included the families of the victims of the plane crash at Los Gatos, as well as folk icon Joan Baez. As a performer, he has collaborated with various troupes, theater ensembles, and artists, and has performed in spaces such as Theaterwork in Santa Fe, Denver Center for the Performing Arts, Dixon Place in NYC, and The Getty Center in Los Angeles. He’s lent his poetry and voice to music albums, performing and recording with acclaimed musicians, such as jazz legend and composer, David Amram, latin jazz/ hip-hop group 40 Watt Hype, folk rocker Johnny Irion, bluesman Lance Canales, and Grammy Award winning classical composer Eugene Freisen.

In 2016 Hernandez began his transition to filmmaking and screenwriting. Inspired by his own early investigative work, in which he honed his skills in audio field recordings, and developed a growing interest in videography, he entered the medium by first filming and editing his own promotional book trailers. Shortly after he began making short films as a means of working out scripts. He went on to adapt his book “Mañana Means Heaven” into a feature length script, and then later adapted his book, “All They Will Call You” and is currently shopping it around. By 2022 he began pre-production for his first feature length documentary, “All They Will Call You,” which is now currently in post-production and slated to be complete by fall 2026, with sights on the festival circuit.

Since 2015, he has been the co-host for the popular literary radio program Words on a Wire KTEP 88.5fm, the NPR affiliate for the borderlands, and he is a frequent guest artist at Universities, cultural institutions, and literary centers across the United States and internationally. Hernandez holds an M.F.A. from Bennington College in Vermont, and a B.A. from Naropa University, the first accredited Buddhist University in the United States. He is currently an Associate Professor in the University of Texas El Paso’s Bilingual M.F.A. in Creative Writing program, and he lives in El Paso, Texas with his two children.