ELIZABETH ACEVEDO’s poetry is infused with her Dominican parents’ bolero and her beloved city’s tough grit. She holds a BA in Performing Arts from The George Washington University and a MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Maryland. With over twelve years of performance experience, Acevedo has been a featured performer on BET and Mun2, as well as delivered several TED Talks and is well known for her poetry videos which have gone viral and been picked up by PBS, Latina Magazine, Cosmopolitan, Huffington Post and Upworthy. Acevedo is a National Poetry Slam Champion and her poetry manuscript, Beastgirl & Other Origin Myths, was published in September 2016 and her young adult novel forthcoming.