Melissa Lozada-Oliva | |
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Born | Newton, Massachusetts | September 7, 1992
Occupation | Writer |
Alma mater | Simmons University |
Melissa Lozada-Oliva (born September 7, 1992) [1] is an American poet and educator based in New York. Her poem "Like Totally Whatever" won the 2015 National Poetry Slam Championship and went viral. [2] [3] [4] [5]
Lozada-Oliva was born and raised in Newton, Massachusetts, by immigrant parents; her mother is Guatemalan and her father is Colombian. [6] [7] She attended college at Simmons University, where she began to perform slam poetry, and graduated in 2014. [8]
After graduation, she published the chapbooks Plastic Pajaros in 2015 and Rude Girl is Lonely Girl! in 2016. Her performance of a poem called "Like Totally Whatever" won the 2015 National Poetry Slam Championship and received mainstream media coverage. [1] [2]
Lozada-Oliva enrolled in New York University's MFA program for Creative Writing in fall 2017. As of spring 2019, she was also teaching a class there. [9] She published Peluda through Button Poetry shortly after enrollment. In it, Lozada-Oliva "explores, interrogates and redefines the intersections of Latina identity, feminism, hair removal & what it means to belong." [9]
In December 2018, Lozada-Oliva started a podcast called Say More along with her best friend and fellow poet Olivia Gatwood. The pair interview each other on topics and answer questions from listeners. [10]
Her verse novel Dreaming of You was published by Astra House in 2021. [11] [12] In 2023, her first prose novel Candelaria was published by Astra House. [13]