Heather Robinson Hernandez, MFA, is a poet, writer, interdisciplinary artist, and learning and program development strategist based in Southern Colorado. She is Editor-in-Chief and Publisher of Red River Review, where she leads editorial direction and creative arts programming. Working across poetry, book arts, assemblage, and collage, she uses text and reclaimed materials to explore place, environmental and collective memory, identity, inheritance, and relationships among personal experience, landscape, and larger histories.
As a teaching artist and educator, Heather designs participatory experiences across poetry, creative nonfiction, art journaling, bookmaking, and reflective art-making. Her programs use story, image, material, and reflection to help participants develop voice, explore ideas, and make connections across personal and shared experience. Her teaching experience spans higher education, adult learning and training, and community-based programs serving youth and adults, including work in juvenile detention centers, refugee resettlement programs, museums, and libraries.
Heather’s community-engaged practice includes designing and leading arts initiatives that connect story, public art, place, and well-being. For example, she developed programming around a Community Healing Tree, a participatory wall mural shaped by reflections and intentions that community members and visitors contributed to over time. Building on her community engagement work, she became a Colorado Change Leader and developed the Future Visions Field Guide, a participatory arts, learning, and civic imagination toolkit for arts and culture workers, teaching artists, and K–12 educators who are developing locally responsive programming around Space Cowboy Colorado, a statewide traveling exhibition connecting community story, Colorado identity, and its aerospace future across the state’s 37 Creative Districts.
Her broader professional work spans workforce and leadership development, educator training, curriculum and program design, and emotional intelligence. She has designed, delivered, and managed training and education programs for the U.S. Department of Defense in the United States and in partner nations, and currently manages a two-county Retired and Senior Volunteer Program focused on older-adult volunteer engagement and community partnerships.