María Fernanda (she/hers) is a poet whose work explores the intimacy of sisterhood and, “the breaking and making of family.” (OkayAfrica).

Her literary works appear in Cheryl Clark's born in a bed of good lessons after Lucille Clifton, Cynthia Manick’s Soul Sister Revue: A Poetry Compilation, Cave Canem's Dogbytes, and elsewhere. María Fernanda an official Program Partner of the District of Columbia Public Library.

She has appeared at Lincoln Center, DCPL, The Phoenix Art Museum, Brooklyn Museum, and The Kelly Writers House at the University of Pennsylvania. Awarded the The Norma Elia Cantú Award in Creative Writing, María Fernanda has received literary appointments from The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and The Arizona Commission on the Arts.

Visit her Instagram here.

Read María Fernanda’s interview with The Bronx is Reading: The Bronx Book Festival.

Purchase The Breakbeat Poets Vol. 4: LatiNext, in which María Fernanda’s poetry appears.

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María Fernanda often performs her work in service of locally rooted initiatives and conversations, such as,

• Philadelphia’s Healing Verse Poetry Line

• Seattle's Familia: Trans Queer Liberation Movement

• San Francisco's Flor y Canto Literary Festival

• Denton, Texas' Denton Black Film Festival

• Phoenix, Arizona's Black August Fundraiser for Mass Liberation AZ and Trans Queer Pueblo

• #PoetsforPuertoRico (National)

• DC’s Youth Leadership Foundation's Black History Poems project

• The Bronx is Reading’s The Bronx Book Festival

• MoMa PS1's En Mi Piel: Colorism and Latinidad

• PA’s Pittsburgh Artists Live

• The Rainbow Book Fair (National)

• NYC’s #MeTooMovement Freelancers Hub

• Poets Out of Place (AWP; National), and more.