Gloria Muñoz

Gloria Muñoz was born on September 1, 1987, in St. Petersburg, Florida. She is a Colombian American writer, literary translator, and advocate for multilingual literacy and writing. Muñoz holds a BA from Sarah Lawrence College and an MFA from the University of South Florida. 

Muñoz is the author of Danzirly/Dawn’s Early (University of Arizona Press, 2021), which was selected for the 2019 Ambroggio Prize by Rosa Alcalá and awarded the 2021 Gold Medal Florida Book Award. She is also the author of the chapbook, Your Biome Has Found You (Finishing Line Press, 2017).

Muñoz is the recipient of a Hedgebrook Fellowship, the Highlights Foundation’s Diverse Verse Fellowship, Lumina’s Multilingual Nonfiction Writing Award, a Las Musas Mentorship for Latine kidlit writers, a New York State Summer Writers Institute Fellowship, a Creative Pinellas Grant, the Estelle J. Zbar Poetry Prize, the Bettye Newman Poetry Award, the St. Petersburg Arts Alliance’s MUSE Award, and the Jim Rolston Professional Development Grant. She has also been a participant in the 2022 Macondo Writers Workshop and in the inaugural Tin House YA Workshop.

In addition to poetry, Muñoz writes bilingually across genres for young readers and adults. Through Moonlit Música, the company she cofounded with the musician and educator Mark Feinman, Muñoz works as a writer and composer for bilingual children’s programming in audio, film, and curriculum.

Muñoz teaches and volunteers with literary and environmental nonprofits in St. Petersburg, Florida. She is a founding member of the Florida Local Artist & Writer Network (FLAWN). In 2022, Muñoz was appointed poet laureate of St. Petersburg, Florida. In 2023, Muñoz received an Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellowship.