Shandela Contreras

Shandela Contreras is a Los Angeles-based poet, artivist, and educator. She’s the author of Cricket in the Slit of a Tummy (Bottlecap Press, 2025), Every Beautiful Pen Bleeds Through (2024), and Mellow Ballads, that move your bones (2021). She was a finalist and ambassador for the California and Los Angeles Youth Poet Laureate. Her work has been featured at events with Governor Newsom, Grammy-winning LA Master Chorale at Walt Disney Concert Hall, 2022 Brotherhood Crusade Gala honoring Dodger's Mookie Betts, Lincoln Center’s Anthem to Us Project, the LA Times Festival of Books, and more. She was one of eight poets selected to represent Los Angeles in the Paris 2024 Cultural Olympic Games. As a creative writing instructor at the Ahmanson Senior Center, she is a firm believer that the voices of the past shape those of the future.