Cristina Cortez is a first-generation Latin-American poet born to immigrant parents. She holds a BA in English, Creative Writing & Literature, and History with Minors in Latin American & Caribbean Studies with Honors & Distinction, from Hofstra University (2015), and a Masters in Fine Arts in Creative Writing & Poetics, from the University of Washington Bothell (2018). Her thesis, Un-bound, is a cross-genre memoir about living life with a disability. She was a speaker at TEDx Everett (March 2017). Her work has been published in I Come From the World Literary Journal (Summer 2017) and La Guagua Poetry Anthology: Celebration & Confrontation (March 2019), the United Spinal Association’s New Mobility Magazine: the magazine for active wheelchair users. Cortez was guest speaker at Breed Middle School’s Spanish National Junior Honor Society Chapter “Rigoberta Menchu” Peace Nobel Prize, and interviewed on Radio Shows Cambiando el mundo de personas con discapacidades with Raquel Quezada (April 2019), Fortaleciendo la Familia with Rafael Disla (Junio 2019) and Conceptos TV Univision, Boston with Efrain Abreu. Cortez has attained a LEND Fellowship at Boston Children’s Hospital (2019-2020). Her first bilingual poetry collection, Tawantinsuyu: Poems of the Time of the Inca (Books&Smith Editors, 2020), is a celebration of the history of Peru and its indigenous people.