Jasminne Mendez is a Dominican-American poet, educator, playwright, and award-winning author. Mendez has had poetry and essays published by or forthcoming in The New England Review, Kenyon Review, Gulf Coast, The Rumpus, and others. She is the author of Island of Dreams, which won an International Latino Book Award, and Night-Blooming Jasmin(n)e: Personal Essays and Poetry. A Bucket of Dirty Water: Memories of My Girlhood and Josefina’s Habichuelas will be released in 2021. Her first full poetry collection, Machete, will be released in 2022. She is an MFA graduate of the creative writing program at the Rainier Writing Workshop at Pacific Lutheran University and a University of Houston alum.