Yael Valencia Aldana

Yael Aldana is a Caribbean Afro-Latinx/e writer and poet. She is the author of the poetry collection, Black Mestiza (University Press of Kentucky) the chapbook, Alien(s). She is a Pushcart Prize winner and the winner of the University Press of Kentucky New Poetry and Prose Series Prize 2023 in poetry, a finalist in the AWP Kurt Brown Scholarship in Creative Nonfiction. She earned a Master’s degree in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies from Florida Atlantic University (FAU) and an M.F.A. in creative writing from Florida International University (FIU). Her work has appeared in Torch Literary Arts, Cutbank Literary Journal, Obsidian, Nelle Journal, among others. Her work has also been featured in Poets & Writers, Ms. Magazine, AWP’s The Writer’s Chronicle, Hip Latina, and The National Latino Book Club, among others

She is the Manging Editor at Purple Ink Press and a member of Aunt Lute Press board. She lives in Southern California between the beach and the mountains.

Yael was born on the Caribbean island of Trinidad and Tobago and 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 Simon’s Rock at Bard College in Massachusetts, where she earned her B.A. in Liberal Arts with a focus in Fine Arts. She stayed in school for a very long time and earned two master’s degrees, including The previously mentioned M.F.A. and an M.A. in Women, Gender, and Sexuality.