He Forgot to Say Goodbye by Benjamin Alire Sáenz

Benjamin Alire Sáenz was born in Old Picacho just outside of Las Cruces, New Mexico. He studied at St. Thomas Seminary in Denver, Colorado and at the University of Louvain in Belgium where he was ordained as a Catholic priest. He also studied at the University of Texas at El Paso, and at Stanford University where he was a Wallace E. Stegner fellow in poetry and also pursued his doctoral studies in American Literature. Sáenz is an American Book Award-winning author of poetry and prose for both adults and teens and is currently a professor in the creative writing department at the University of Texas, El Paso. His first young adult novel, Sammy and Juliana in Hollywood, was published in 2004 and won the Américas Book Award, the Patterson Book Prize, the J. Hunt Award, and was even named one of the top ten books of the year by the American Library Association.
Recipient Web Site: http://www.benjaminaliresaenz.com/