Poet Sam Pereira, with roots from his father’s side in the Azores, Portugal, will be among the featured writers at the Fresno Writers Summit, taking place Saturday, October 17, 2026, from 1 to 8 p.m. at Fresno State’s Smittcamp Alumni House.
The Portuguese Beyond Borders Institute (PBBI) at Fresno State will participate through Bruma Publications, highlighting Pereira’s newly released Code Blue: New and Selected Poems.
Pereira’s presence is especially significant for the Portuguese-American community. His poetry brings Azorean-American memory into contemporary American literature—not as picturesque nostalgia, but as a living exploration of migration, family, identity, illness, love, mortality and belonging. The ancestral islands remain a quiet current beneath his writing, shaping its understanding of silence, loss and the passage of time.
Bringing together new work and poems from across his literary career, Code Blue confirms Pereira as an important voice in Portuguese-American letters. The title evokes the language of medical emergency, while also suggesting another urgency: preserving memory before it disappears and giving language to experiences earlier generations often carried in silence.
Pereira will appear during the afternoon session alongside poet Olivia Muñoz, author of These Women, They Carry Purses Full of Knives, and memoirist Jack Chavoor, author of Ghosts of the Genocide. The evening program will honor the acclaimed poet Larry Levis and feature Emily Peacock, Dawn Parker, Jacob Selway and David St. John.
Pereira’s participation ensures that an Azorean-American voice will be heard within an important regional literary gathering. It also advances PBBI and Bruma Publications’ mission: bringing writers of Portuguese heritage into broader academic, literary, and cultural conversations.
The summit’s location is equally meaningful. Fresno, California’s fifth-largest city, has an estimated population of more than 555,000 and stands among the nation’s most culturally diverse urban communities. More than 70 ethnic groups form part of its metropolitan landscape.
Within this remarkable human mosaic, Fresno State has become an important center for literature, creative writing and intercultural expression. Fresno and the central and southern San Joaquin Valley possess an extraordinary creative vitality—a true constellation of cultures, languages and voices. Through Sam Pereira and Code Blue, the Azorean-American experience will take its rightful place within that continuing literary conversation.
Fresno Writers Summit
Saturday, October 17, 2026
1–8 p.m.
Smittcamp Alumni House, Fresno State
Admission: $10