Bio

Adela Najarro is the author of four poetry collections: Split Geography, Twice Told Over, My Childrens, a chapbook that includes teaching resources, and Volcanic Interruptions, a chapbook that includes Janet Trenchard’s artwork. The Letras Latinas/ Red Hen Collaborative has selected Variations in Blue for publication in 2025. 

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 serves on the board of directors 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 appears in the University of Arizona Press anthology The Wind Shifts: New Latino Poetry, and she has published poems in numerous journals, including 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 elsewhere.  She currently calls Santa Cruz, California, home.