Adriana E. Ramirez Books In Order

Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books

Publication Order of Poetry Books

Publication Order of Anthologies

Adriana E. Ramírez is an American poet, critic, and writer of Mexican-Colombian descent.

She is the author of the 2026 book The Violence: My Family’s Colombian War. The book chronicles Colombia as it moves through the twentieth century as experienced from the point of view of her grandmother’s family.

Adriana has written for a variety of publications such as The Atlantic, the Boston Globe, People Magazine, ESPN’s The Undefeated, the Los Angeles Review of Books, Guernica/PENAmerica, Literary Hub, HEArt, Convolution, Nerve, and Apogee, as well as others. Her poetry and her prose have been translated into different languages that include Flemish and Spanish. Two of her essays have also been picked as ‘Notable’ as part of the Best American essays series.

Adriana received the 2015 PEN/Fusion Emerging Writer’s Prize, an award that is given to recognize a writer under the age of 35 who is promising for their unpublished nonfiction work that addresses a global/multicultural issue. The author won the prize for Dead Boys, her 2016 nonfiction novella.

Ramírez served as a columnist and critic in addition to being an editor of InReview. She also was a part of the editorial board for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Her editorial writing, commentary, and arts criticism at the Post-Gazette also won her various recognition and awards from the Society for Features Journalism, the Pittsburgh Black Media Federation, the Society for Professional Journalists Keystone Chapter, and the Press Club of Western Pennsylvania.

She was also the Critic At Large for 2016 to 2020 for the Los Angeles Times’ Book Section. There she penned book reviews as well as essays that focused on everything having to do with the literary world. Adriana was awarded the City of Asylum Pittsburgh Prize/PASSA PORTA Residency in Brussels, Belgium in 2017. She was given an Investing in Local Artists grant as well as the Carol R. Brown Creative Achievement Award for an Established Artist by the Pittsburgh Foundation and the Heinz Endowments in 2019.

Adriana has also written two small press poetry chapbooks that came out over the years. She first self-published The Swallows in 2012, and it enjoyed a reissue from Blue Sketch Press four years later. Her chapbook Trusting in Imaginary Spaces came out in 2010 from Tired Hearts Press.

Ramírez has been the nonfiction editor of DISMANTLE, a 2014 anthology released by Thread Makes Blanket Press. The work focused on celebrating the VONA/Voices workshop. She served as the co-editor of the 2020 work In the Shadow of the Mic: Three Decades of Slam Poetry in Pittsburgh along with co-editor Jesse Welch.

She co-founded Aster(ix) Journal along with Angie Cruz, a novelist, in 2013. The literary arts journal was devoted to social justice and centered on giving a voice to those who had been marginalized and centered. Adriana co-hosted a podcast from 2021 to 2022 called ‘Charla Cultura’ along with Karla Lamb.

Adriana also co-founded the Pittsburgh Poetry Collective, something she had ample experience as a former nationally-ranked slam poet and poetry slam tournament director. She left the Collective in 2016 and would go on to found ‘Nasty Slam’.

She was featured in the 2014 Legends of Poetry Slam Showcase, TEDxHouston 2013, and the 2016 Three Rivers Arts Festival. She also performed in 2017 as a featured storyteller for the Moth’s Mainstage show in Pittsburgh.

Adriana was born in Mexico city but was raised in McAllen, Texas. She attended Rice University where she graduated with her B.A. in English and would go on to get her MFA in Nonfiction Writing from the University of Pittsburgh. She was hired to be a lecturer and visiting lecturer at the University of Pittsburgh, a position that she retrained for nearly a decade. Since then, she has taught at Carlow University and Chatham University’s MFA low-residency programs.

Adriana is an alum of VONA and the National Hispanic Institute. She follows Mexican soccer avidly despite her frequent disappointment in the results and loves large bodies of water. She is an omnivore, writes twice a week, is Jewish, and once appeared on ‘Jeopardy!’– where she handily lost.

The author is married and has two children. Her family lives with her in the city of Pittsburgh, where they also share their home with their dog who has a name that roughly translates to ‘suitcase’. She loves to vegetable garden as well as plan bike rides that don’t end up happening. Adriana also has a passion for collecting Funko Pop figurines. She also loves a good taco or margarita.

Dead Boys is a 2016 brief nonfictional memoir by Adriana E. Ramírez. This book won the PEN/Fusion Emerging Writers Prize. If you’d enjoy something brief but powerful, check out these linked essays and find out more.

A boy is gunned down by a loan shark, nine bodies hang from a bridge, a camouflaged dead body washes up on the beach. The death of the brother of the author in a horse riding accident when they were young. All of these stories come together to form a unique tapestry that is full of themes of tragedy, empathy, strength, and survival. Featuring victims of drug wars and the ‘dead boys’ that the author has seen throughout the course of her life, this is an incredible work that you won’t want to miss.

The Violence: My Family’s Colombian War is a 2026 book by Adriana E. Ramírez. Kirkus Reviews gave this novel a starred review, calling it ‘eminently readable and beautifully written’. If you’ve been looking for a new read that has layers of authenticity, this might be the book for you.

Colombia moves into decades of civil war, as witnessed through different generations. A presumed president-elect gets assassinated right before the Colombia 1948 presidential election, and the capital descends into violence. This sets off a harsh time in the history of the country that comes to be called ‘la violencia’. It is a civil war with much blood spilled that caused turmoil while dividing the people of the country into different factions.

The story is told through the eyes of Adriana’s grandmother Esther and from the mountainous finca that her family has taken care of throughout the generations. The author shows the reader the ghost of violence that haunts them and its threat to a family and country in a work that is a must-read from start to finish.