Bio

Adela Najarro is the author of five poetry collections, including Variations in Blue, selected for publication in 2025 through the Letras Latinas/Red Hen Collaborative. Her other works include Split Geography, Twice Told Over, My Childrens, and Volcanic Interruptions, a chapbook featuring artwork by Janet Trenchard. 

The 2024 Int'l Latino Book Awards designated Volcanic Interruptions as an Honorable Mention in the Juan Felipe Herrera Best Poetry Book Award category.  The California Arts Council recognized her as an established artist for the Central California Region and appointed her as an Individual Artist Fellow.  

Adela Najarro is a poet with a social consciousness who is working on a novel. Her extended family left Nicaragua and arrived in San Francisco during the 1940s; after the fall of the Somoza regime, the last of the family settled in the Los Angeles area. She is the Board President for Círculo de poetas and Writers and works with the Latinx community nationwide, promoting the intersection of creative writing and social justice. 

She holds a doctorate in literature and creative writing from Western Michigan University, as well as an M.F.A. from Vermont College, and is widely published in numerous anthologies and literary magazines. 

Her poetry and essays appear in Latino Poetry: The Library of America Anthology, Latino Poetics, The Wandering Song: Central American Writing in the United States, and other anthologies. Her work has also been featured in numerous journals, including Poetry, Huizache, Porter Gulch Review, Acentos Review, BorderSenses, Feminist Studies, Puerto del Sol, Nimrod International Journal of Poetry & Prose, Notre Dame Review, Blue Mesa Review, Crab Orchard Review, and more. She currently resides in Santa Cruz, California.