Xochiquetzal Candelaria is a poet, essayist, and teacher based in San Francisco, California. She is the author of two books of poetry, Empire, (University of Arizona Press, 2011) and Show Me the Bells, (Tia Chucha Press, 2024). Her work has appeared in The Nation, Tin House, Colorado Review and other magazines. Her honors include fellowships from the LEF Foundation, the Barbara Deming Memorial Fund and an individual grant from National Endowment for the Arts. Her writing has been anthologized, most recently, in Other Musics: New Latina Poetry, The Poetry of Capital, and The Awesome Difficult Work of Love: June Jordan’s Legacy. She teaches poetry, composition and literature at City College of San Francisco and is currently co-editing an anthology about the intersection of art and activism at UC Berkeley in the 90s.