María Fernanda Chamorro (she/hers) is an award-winning poet and a creative producer with prize-winning collaborations. Awarded the Norma Elia Cantú Award in Creative Writing, her poetry explores the intimacy of sisterhood, the anchor of intergenerational coexistence, and grief. María Fernanda is a recipient of literary appointments from The National Endowment for the Arts, The Academy of American Poets, The Arizona Commission on the Arts, and the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities.

María Fernanda is a program partner at the District of Columbia Public Library, a program specialist for The Parkmont Poetry Festival, and an instructor at The Writer’s Center, Politics & Prose, and the American Poetry Museum.  

In February 2025, she is the first poet to present at Brookings Institution, a global think tank that conducts in-depth, nonpartisan research to improve policy and governance at local, national, and global levels.

She is a two-time Best of the Net Nominee. Her latest work appears in The Hill Rag, The BreakBeat Poets Vol. 4, Cave Canem: Dogbytes, and Cheryl Clarke's born in a bed of good lessons: poems inspired by the works of Lucille Clifton. María Fernanda is a published contributor of The Library of Congress.

She is the founder and executive producer of the independent interview series a poetry garden, where Black poets and gardeners discuss their creative and historical connections to gardens.  

She served as an Inaugural The Academy of American Poets Poetry Coalition Fellow, a Scholastic Art and Writing Awards Judge for New York City Writing, The Black Artists and Designers Association Secondary Advisor at Arizona State University, and a guest speaker for Lincoln Center Education as an Artist in the Industry. María Fernanda performs her poetry across the United States, including The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, , The Brooklyn Museum, Arizona’s Phoenix Art Museum, MoMa PS1, Texas' Denton Black Film Festival, and more. MacArthur Genius Award grantee Terrance Hayes selected her work as a finalist for the Hurston/Wright Amistad Award for College Writers in Poetry.

María Fernanda often reads poetry in service of locally-rooted national initiatives and conversations, including The Bronx is Reading’s The Bronx Book Festival, #PoetsforPuertoRico, The Rainbow Book Fair, #MeTooMovement Freelancers Hub, DC’s Youth Leadership Foundation, and others.

Serving as The Academy of American Poets Poetry Coalition Fellow, she organized Of Restless Gardens, a digital event was inspired by Linda Hogan's "Map" and part of the Academy of American Poets’ Poetry and Environmental Justice programming.

As part of 2024 Best of D.C., TheWashington City Paper recognized the DCPL Mount Pleasant location as a second runner up in Best Library Branch of 2024 where María Fernanda programmed four poetry programs as part of their offerings, resulting in nearly 60% of their overall poetry programming.

Three Literary Components

Participants leave literary experiences facilitated by María Fernanda with additional techniques to support their writing practice, as individuals, and when part of a collective.

• Creativity

  Each experience is crafted to encourage your intuitive choices. Historical contextualization will ground the direction of the lesson in an effort to inspire imagination.

• Generation

  Creating new work is a core component. The structure ignites unique ways to begin writing both in and out of the collective literary experience.

• Revision

  Finding the best editing process for your current project is crucial. Several serial studio sessions include one-on-one sessions with María Fernanda to focus on your work.

Experiences with these components are delivered as,

·       Public Readings

·       Literary workshops

·       Poetry Field Trips

·       Youth Programs

·       Lectures (see Speeches)

·       & more

María Fernanda’s care and stewardship of this production was truly masterful.

— Executive Client at the Park Avenue Armory

María Fernanda (she/hers) is an inter/national producer and programmer who partners with performing arts centers, national literary initiatives, museums, public libraries, bookstores, and more to support their programming and cultural landscapes.

Specializing as a creative producer for the performing arts, María Fernanda’s expertise is in producing venue-wide live productions (3k+ attendees), commissioning new work, dispatch, developing residencies for both individuals and groups (70+), and extensive artist contract management. The COVID-19 pandemic heightened her research in virtual stages and producing multi-day events on various platforms.

Producer credits include: Assistant Producer, Soundtrack of America (Quincy Jones, Maureen Mahon, Jon Batiste, Steve McQueen); Producer, Jacqueline and Jason’s Block Party! (Jacqueline Woodson), Production Asst Misc. (Patti LuPone; André 3000; Common; Black Thought); Company Manager, Reach Opening Festival, (Sister Nancy, more).

María Fernanda is the founder of Black Producers Network (est. 2021), a collective that builds preparatory and responsive resources for independent producers across the globe, including Los Angeles, New York, Monrovia (Liberia ), Accra (Ghana), and more. New season of offerings debuts in 2026.