ABOUT ME

María José Maldonado (she/they)

I’m a queer nonbinary Salvadoran-Ecuadorian writer + creative born and raised in Queens, NY.

I’m funny. I’m pescatarian. I’m a socialist feminist cat owner. What’s not to love?

I’ll be posting my very important thoughts, very high quality videos and very gay poems and short stories on here. I hope you like reading about lesbian demons & vegetarian chupacabras & gays at the bodega. I’m an Aquarius Sun, Leo Rising & Aries Moon — queers love astro <3

My work focuses on queerness, Salvadoran identity, rage and feminism. I write speculative fiction, poetry, zines and whatever I want!

I am Lambda Literary 2022 Speculative Fiction Fellow for the Writer’s Retreat for Emerging LGBTQ Voices in a week-long workshop led by Larissa Lai (upcoming), an alum of Macondo Writers Workshop 2022 Fiction workshop led by Alex Espinoza, a 2020-2021 Leslie-Lohman Museum Artist Fellow, 2019-2020 Queer|Art|Mentorship Literature Fellow under the mentorship of Charles Rice-González, a 2020-2021 Money for Women/Barbara Deming Memorial Fund Awardee for feminist fiction, graduate of “Creative Writing from Queer Resistance” workshop led by Nancy Agabian & sponsored by the Leslie-Lohman Museum and Poets & Writers. My writing has appeared in Autostraddle and countless Muji notebooks scattered around my Canadian crib in the 6ix. I’m a proud alum of Howard University, Phillips Exeter Academy, Prep for Prep and I also graduated from Dartmouth College.