Sheila Maldonado is the author of one-bedroom solo (Fly by Night Press/A Gathering of the Tribes, 2011), her debut poetry collection. She grew up in Coney Island across the street from the Atlantic. Her family hails from Honduras. Her poems have appeared in Rattapallax, Callaloo, Hyperallergic, Aster(ix) Journal, and Me No Habla with Acento: Contemporary Latino Poetry. She has been granted awards from the Northern Manhattan Arts Alliance as well as residencies at the Rockefeller estate in New York and Fundación Valparaíso in Spain. She also served as a Cultural Envoy to Honduras for the U.S. State Department. She teaches creative writing for The City University of New York and Teachers & Writers Collaborative. She holds degrees in English from Brown University and poetry from The City College of New York. She lives in uptown Manhattan above the Hudson.