David M. de León

David M. de León (he/him) is a Puerto Rican writer, academic, and theater artist from New Jersey. Creative work has appeared or is forthcoming in places like Best of the Net, [PANK], DIAGRAM, AGNI, Fence Magazine, Indiana Review, Up the Staircase Quarterly, Acentos Review, Pleiades, At Length, Strange Horizons, Bat City Review, 2River View, Anderbo, The Cortland Review, Anti-, The Adirondack Review, and the anthologies Até Mais and Only The Sea Keeps.

David’s debut book of poetry The Cats of Old San Juan was a finalist at [PANK] books and for the Andrés Montoya Prize. His previous manuscript, On a Field in the Present, was shortlisted for the Dorset prize at Tupelo Press and the Lena-Miles Wever Todd prize at Pleiades Press. He was a 2019 Tin House Summer Scholar and a scholarship recipient at the Fine Arts Work Center. David has a BA from Hunter College CUNY and a Ph.D in English from Yale University. His academic work focuses on long-form poetic works by Black Americans in the era of Black Lives Matter. David is also a playwright and screenwriter.