about
sofía aguilar
is a Chicana writer and editor based on the traditional homelands of the Tongva and Chumash peoples, now known as Los Angeles, California. Her work has appeared in the L.A. Times, Refinery29 Somos, and New Orleans Review, among other publications. Since 2015, she has performed at the L.A. Festival of Books, Barnes & Noble Eastchester, Wadham College at Oxford University, the Municipal Green Building Conference and Expo, the Tepoztlán Ex Convento Museum, LA Public Counsel, and New York's 9th Judicial Court District at the invitation of the Honorable Kathie E. Davidson.
As a freelance journalist, she frequently covers breaking news, politics, pop culture, media and entertainment, and representation of marginalized communities for media outlets including Latina Media, HipLatina, and Unpublished Magazine. She is also a weekly columnist at Syracuse University’s student newspaper, The Daily Orange, where she writes about pop culture and media. She is also the co-founder and editor-in-chief of Mag 20/20, a multi-media magazine spotlighting creatives in their 20s; the co-founder of Tenderheart Collective, an online poetry house led by and for BIPOC womxn writers; the creator of Creativity Café, an IG Live series uplifting writers of all backgrounds, levels, genres, and stages of their career; and the owner of her own crochet shop and yarn collective Sofíe’s Yarn.
As an alum of WriteGirl and a first-generation college graduate, Sofía earned a BA from Sarah Lawrence College, where she received the Andrea Klein Willison Prize for Poetry and the Spencer Barnett Memorial Prize for Excellence in Latin American and Latinx Studies. Additionally, she is the 2022 recipient of the Sandra Cisneros Fellowship from Under the Volcano, a recipient of the SVWC Writing Fellowship from the 2023 Sun Valley Writers’ Conference, a 2023 Mentee in the Latinx in Publishing Writers Mentorship Program, a two-time recipient of the Nancy Lynn Schwartz Prize for Fiction, a three-time recipient of the Jean Goldschmidt Kempton Scholarship for Young Writers, a two-time Best of the Net nominee, and a finalist for the Academy of American Poets College Prize. STREAMING SERVICE: golden shovels made for tv (2021) is her self-published debut poetry chapbook. Its sequel STREAMING SERVICE: season two, also self-published, was released in June 2022.
She is at work on her third poetry chapbook and her first novel. Her debut children’s picture book spotlighting past and present queer heroes from Latin America and the U.S. is forthcoming from Jessica Kingsley Publishers. She is currently pursuing an M.S. in Library and Information Science at Syracuse University’s School of Information Studies.
*Photo credits: Renee Rodriguez