Elizabeth Acevedo
B.A. ’10
Award-Winning and Best-Selling Author and Poet
Monumental Achievement: Dominican-American writer Elizabeth Acevedo is The New York Times-bestselling author of The Poet X, which won the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature, the Michael L. Printz Award, the Pura Belpré Award, the Carnegie medal, the Boston Globe–Horn Book Award, and the Walter Award. Acevedo—a National Poetry Slam champion—has also been internationally recognized for her books With the Fire on High and Clap When You Land.
"I am so thankful to the individuals at GW who nourished me and allowed me space to make a small corner of Foggy Bottom my own; the confidence I built in that small corner allowed me to catapult into the world. Leslie Jacobson, Michael Tapscott, Helen Cannaday and the countless professors who affirmed me left such a special mark on me and my work."
Biography
Elizabeth Acevedo is The New York Times-bestselling author of The Poet X, which won the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature, the Michael L. Printz Award, the Pura Belpré Award, the Carnegie medal, the Boston Globe–Horn Book Award, and the Walter Award. She is also the author of With the Fire on High—named a best book of the year by the New York Public Library, NPR, Publishers Weekly, and School Library Journal—and Clap When You Land, a Boston Globe–Horn Book Honor book and a Kirkus finalist.
She holds a B.A. in performing arts from the George Washington University and an M.F.A. in creative writing from the University of Maryland. Acevedo has been a fellow of Cave Canem and Cantomundo, and a participant in the Callaloo Writer’s Workshops. She is a National Poetry Slam Champion, and resides in Washington, D.C. with her love.