Adriana E. Ramírez
Adriana E. Ramírez is a Mexican-Colombian performance poet, non-fiction writer and essayist. Having grown up in Texas, she lives and works in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Ramírez studied English and (non-fiction) writing and has taught creative writing and English literature at the University of Pittsburgh. She currently teaches non-fiction writing at Carlow University.
Adriana Ramírez has published several collections of poems, including most recently The Swallows (2014, Blue Sketch Press) and Trusting in Imaginary Spaces(2015, Tired Hearts Press). For her novella/memoir Dead Boys (2016, Little A) Ramírez won the 2015 PEN/FUSION Emerging Writers Prize, which is awarded annually to a young author for an unpublished work of non-fiction that addresses a multicultural or global issue. In Dead Boys, Ramírez tackles the universal feeling of mourning and sorrow against the backdrop of the drug trade, and explores the geopolitical situation of Mexico, Colombia and the United States.
Adriana Ramírez is also active as a slam poet. She has won several competitions, including the 2014 National Poetry Slam. She is a co-founder of the Pittsburgh Poetry Collective. Her critical essays have appeared in the Los Angeles Times and the Los Angeles Review of Books, among others. Her subjects include American literature, violence and immigration.
During her residency in Brussels, Ramírez will work on a non-fiction book, The Violence (forthcoming in 2018). The story of a Colombian family, it is based on oral accounts of drug tourism. Read more on the author's website.