Sandra M. Castillo

Born in Havana, Cuba, poet Sandra Castillo moved to Miami, Florida, with her family in 1970. Castillo earned both her BA and MA in creative writing from Florida State University. She is the author of My Father Sings to My Embarrassment (2002), selected by Cornelius Eady for the White Pine Press Poetry Prize. Her poems have been published in Cimarron Review, Midway Journal, Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review, PALABRA: A Magazine of Chicano & Latino Literary Art, The North American Review, The Connecticut Review, The Florida Review, Puerto del Sol, The Belleview Literary Review, The Cimarron Review, and Clackamas Literary Review.

Castillo’s work has appeared in various anthologies including The Norton Anthology of Latino Literature (2011), Approaching Literature in the 21st Century (2005), Like Thunder, Poets Respond to Violence in America (2002), American Diaspora, the Poetry of Displacement (2002), Burnt Sugar, Contemporary Cuban Poetry in English & Spanish (2006), A Century of Cuban Writers in Florida (1996), Paper Dance: 52 Latino Poets (1995), Little Havana Blues (1996), Touching the Fire: Fifteen Poets of Today's Latino Renaissance (1998) and Cool Salsa: On Growing Up Latino in the U.S. (1994).

Castillo’s early life in Cuba was shaped by her extended family—including a large cast of uncles and aunts—as well as the stories and ever-present possibility of immigration to the United States. Her poetry often draws on these childhood experiences, referencing an uncle’s photographs, relatives’ arrests, and the streets and lives left behind.

Castillo teaches at Miami Dade College in Florida.