Yael Valencia Aldana

Yael Aldana is a Caribbean Afro-Latinx writer and poet. She earned her M.F.A. in creative writing from Florida International University (F.I.U.). Her work has appeared in The Florida Book Review, South Florida Poetry Journal, The Human Prospect and is upcoming in Miniskirt Magazine, Scapegoat Review, Antithesis Blog, and Slag Glass City.

Yael was born on the Caribbean island of Trinidad and Tobago but grew up on the neighboring island of Barbados. She moved to Brooklyn as a teenager. She hated high school and went to college at sixteen. She attended to Simon’s Rock at Bard College in Massachusetts, where she earned her B.A. in Liberal Arts with a focus on Fine Arts. She earned a Master’s Degree in Women, Gender, and Sexuality from Florida Atlantic University and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Florida International University.

She currently works as a freelance writer and editor. She also teaches Creative Writing at F.I.U., and serves as Associate Creative Nonfiction Editor at West Trade Review. She lives in South Florida with her son and too many pets.