Amalia Leticia OrtizAmalia Leticia Ortiz is a Tejana actor, writer, and activist who appeared on three seasons of Russell Simmons Presents Def Poetry on HBO, and has toured colleges and universities as a solo artist and with performance-poetry troupes Diva Dicton, The Chicano Messengers of Spoken Word, and the Def Poetry College Tour. Her debut book of poetry, Rant. Chant. Chisme. (Wings Press), won the 2015 Poetry Discovery Prize from the Writers' League of Texas Book Awards and was selected by NBC Latino as one of the 10 Great Latino Books of 2015. A CantoMundo Fellow and Hedgebrook Writer-In-Residence alumna, she received the 2002 Alfredo Cisneros Del Moral Foundation Award, which was founded by Sandra Cisneros, and her poem These Hands Which Have Never Picked Cotton was nominated for the 2012 Pushcart Prize. Her MFA is in Creative Writing from the University of Texas Río Grande Valley. Read More Read Less