Jasminne Mendez is a two time Pura Belpre Honor Award Author and an NAACP Image Award Nominee. She is a Dominican-American poet, playwright and award winning author of several books for children and adults. Including the novels in verse Aniana del Mar Jumps In and the YA novel in verse The Story of My Anger. Her other books have received prizes from the Texas Institute of Letters, the Writer’s League of Texas and the International Latino Book Awards. She has also had poetry and essays published in numerous journals and anthologies including The Acentos Review, The New England Review, Kenyon Review, Gulf Coast, Poetry Magazine and others. She is an MFA graduate of the Rainier Writing Workshop at Pacific Lutheran University and a University of Houston alumni and her second picture book We’re Off to Carnaval! will be released in January 2027.