Lex E. Santí is a novelist, poet, essayist, and teacher whose work is rooted in the conviction that writing is an act of witness — that to pay close attention to a life, on the page or in a room, is among the most serious things a person can do.

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His work has appeared in Cubista Magazine, Prick of the Spindle, Word Riot, In Posse Review, Dark Sky Magazine, and Plum Ruby Review. He is the author of four collections of poetry, a collection of essays on writing and publishing, a collection of short stories, and his debut novel, The Song of the Midnight Rider — a literary noir road novel set from the 80s through the early 2000s, about loyalty, escape, and what it costs to be free.

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From 2005 to 2021, he founded and edited Our Stories Literary Journal, one of the first literary publications to offer editorial feedback to every writer who submitted. The principle was simple and, at the time, rare: every writer deserves to be read carefully, not just accepted or rejected. Over seventeen years, Our Stories helped tens of thousands of writers on their journey, published in-depth interviews with Dorothy Allison, Stuart Dybek, Richard Bausch, Cara Hoffman, Ana Menéndez, and many others, and produced six print anthologies. Those books remain in print.

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Teaching has been threaded through all of it. He has taught English and writing in Romania, South Korea, Washington D.C., and across the Finger Lakes region of New York. He has led more than a hundred creative writing workshops for individuals and groups. He has always believed that writing is not a gift rationed to a few, but a practice available to anyone willing to pay attention.

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That belief has a history behind it. He is the son of Cuban refugees who came to this country carrying memory and loss in equal measure. He grew up between languages — between the world his parents had left and the one they were building. He found his gifts late — not as a failure but as a fact, the way some rivers take longer to reach the sea. He served in the Peace Corps in Romania, came home changed, and spent the years that followed trying to understand what had shifted and why.

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He holds an MFA in fiction from George Mason University, where he studied with Richard Bausch and Alan Cheuse. He is also a clinical therapist, holds an MSW from Washington University in Saint Louis, and is currently working toward his DSW from the University of Kentucky. He thinks of writing and therapy as two expressions of the same discipline: the willingness to stay present with what is actually there, rather than what is easier to see.

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He lives in Trumansburg, New York, with his wife, who grounds him, and his children, who keep him honest. He writes in the early mornings, before the house wakes up, which remains the only time the sentences come out right.