with  Naomi Ayala

Naomi Ayala works as an education consultant, freelance writer, and teacher, and is a Visiting Humanities Scholar for Hermana a Hermana/Sister to Sister. Until recently, she served as Co-Chair of the Board of Directions of Teaching for Change: Building Social Justice, Starting in the Classroom. She is the author of Wild Animals on the Moon (Curbstone Press, 1997) – selected by the New York City Public Library as one of 1999’s Books for the Teen Age.

Her work has appeared in numerous publications – most recently, in Feminist Teacher and The Washington Post’s Book World; Ploughshares, Poetry Daily, Saheb Ghalam Daily, Hostos Review/Revista Hostoniana, Gargoyle, MARGIN: Exploring Modern Magical Realism, Saranac Review, and Tiger Tail, as well as in several anthologies of contemporary Latino writing (including Boriquén to Diasporican: Puerto Rican Poetry from Aboriginal Times to the New Millenium, and First Flight: 24 Latino Poets). Her translations of poetry have appeared both in the U.S. and Switzerland.

Naomi Ayala has also been the recipient of several awards and recognitions (among them, the Larry Neal Writers Award for Poetry, a Trailblazer Arts Award, The Martin Luther King, Jr. Legacy of Environmental Justice Award, and has received U.S. Congressional Recognition for her work in the arts). Naomi Ayala has also been the recipient of two individual artists’ fellowships from the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities (2005 and 2003).  She lives in Washington, DC.