Celia Lisset Alvarez is a writer and educator from Miami, Florida. She holds an MFA in creative writing from the University of Miami and has four collections of poetry, Shapeshifting (winner of the 2005 Spire Press Poetry Award), The Stones (Finishing Line Press 2006), Multiverses (Finishing Line Press 2021) and Bodies & Words (Assure Press 2022). Her stories and poetry have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, most recently in Her writing has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, most recently in Pink Panther Magazine, DarkWinter Literary Magazine, and Last Leaves Magazine. She has work forthcoming in the anthologies SMEOP 2: HOT (Black Sunflowers Press) and The Book of Life after Death (Tolsun Books), and in Blue Mountain Review. Nominated for both the Pushcart and Best of the Net Prizes, she was the editor of the literary journal Prospectus: A Literary Offering.

Alvarez was born in Spain to Cuban parents fleeing from Castro’s communist regime. They relocated to Miami in 1974, and eventually were able to reunite most of their extended families. Alvarez has always considered Miami home, and lives with her husband, fellow teacher and writer Rafael Miguel Montes, their daughters Lucy and Sara, and her recently widowed mother. She has taught composition, literature, scientific, and creative writing at Florida International University, Miami Dade College, the University of Miami, and St. Thomas University, and now teaches at Our Lady of Lourdes Academy. Her work often reflects her Cuban-American upbringing and themes of isolation and grief. Her 2021 poetry collection, Multiverses, a finalist in the narrative poetry category of American Book Fest’s Best Books Award, chronicles the loss of her twenty-six-day-old son in 2018.