Yael Valencia Aldana is the author of the chapbook, Alien(s) (Bottlecap Press) and the forthcoming poetry collection, Black Mestiza (University Press of Kentucky, 2025). She is the winner of the University Press of Kentucky New Poetry and Prose Series Prize 2023, a Pushcart Prize winner, a finalist in the AWP Kurt Brown Scholarship, semi-finalist for the Two Sylvia Press Wilder Poetry Prize. Her work has appeared in Torch Literary Arts, Stone Coast Review, South Florida Poetry Journal, and Cutbank Literary Journal, among others. She is the managing editor at Purple Ink Press and teaches creative writing at Florida International University.