Luivette Resto

Luivette Resto was born in Aguas Buenas, Puerto Rico but proudly raised in the Bronx. She earned her bachelors in English Literature from Cornell University in 1999 and later her M.F.A. in Creative Writing, Poetry in 2003 from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst Program for Poets and Writers. Her first book of poetry Unfinished Portrait was published in 2008 by Tia Chucha Press, whose editor is our current Los Angeles poet laureate Luis J. Rodriguez, and later the book was named a finalist for the 2009 Paterson Poetry Prize. She has served as a contributing poetry editor for Kweli Journal, a CantoMundo fellow, and a member of the advisory board of Con Tinta. Her new book Ascension was published in April 2013 courtesy of Tia Chucha Press, and it was recently selected for the 2014 Paterson Award for Literary Excellence for previous finalists of the Paterson Poetry Prize. Some of her latest work can be read on Luna Luna Magazine, Toe Good Poetry, Upworthy, Journal of Mujeres Activas en Letras y Cambio Social, and the Altadena Anthology 2015. Currently, she lives in Glendora with her three children.