A fervent and passionate social change agent, Bino A. Realuyo was born and raised in Manila, Philippines. He is the son of a survivor of the Death March and Japanese Concentration Camp in the Philippines during World War 2.Realuyo is also an educator in underserved communities and author of the award-winning books, The Umbrella Country, and The Gods We Worship Live Next Door. His poetry and fiction have appeared in numerous literary journals and magazines including The Nation, The Literary Review, The Kenyon Review, New Letters, and in the recent anthology, Fire in the Soul: 100 Poets for Human Rights.His literary awards include a New York Foundation for the Arts fellowship for fiction, a Van Lier Foundation fellowship for poetry, Urban Artist Grant for fiction, PEN Open Book award for non-fiction, a Barnes and Noble "Discover Great New Writers Award" nomination, Valparaiso Foundation fellowship for fiction, a Yaddo fellowship for Poetry, a Lucille Medwick Memorial Award from Poetry Society of America, an Asian American "Member's Choice" Book Award, and a 2009 Philippine National Book Award for Poetry.He was a co-founder of the Asian American Writers Workshop and is on the faculty of Fairleigh Dickinson University's international MFA program in Creative Writing.Realuyo has a degree in International Relations from the School of International Service at The American University in Washington, DC and Universidad Argentina de La Empresa in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He received his graduate education in Technology, Innovation, and Education from Harvard University's Graduate School of Education and was a recipient of a Catherine D. Reynolds Fellow in Social Entrepreneurship from The Kennedy School's Center for Public Leadership.Inspired by his mother, a former adult learner, he has spent the past 15 years working as a Program Manager and Educator in adult literacy organizations in New York City. Recently, he founded { We Speak America }, a social enterprise that leverages internet-based technology to provide education, training, and work-based literacy for low-wage, low-skilled immigrants in the U.S.