Tony Medina, winner of the 2025 Letras Boricuas Fellowship through The Mellon Foundation and the Flamboyán Arts Fund, was born in the South Bronx, raised in the Throgs Neck Housing Projects, and is a veteran of the United States Army. He received his master’s and PhD at Binghamton University and is Associate Chair and Director of Creative Writing at Howard University. A multi-genre author/editor of 24 books for adults and young people, his honors include the National Black Writers Conference Nikki Giovanni Award and a State of New York Proclamation and Legislative Resolution for literary achievement. Medina’s poetry and prose appear in over 170 anthologies and journals, and his recent works include Resisting Arrest: Poems to Stretch the Sky (anthology), Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Black Boy (children’s), I Am Alfonso Jones (graphic novel), Che Che Colé (fiction), Death, With Occasional Smiling (poetry), Because the Sky (poetry) and Tetas de Vaca (ICE ICE, Baby), a play. His book, Serious Trouble: Poems Selected, Poems New, is forthcoming from Third World Press (Chicago). Author photo by Alyse Hammonds.