Xochit-Julisa Bermejo (2024)

Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo is the daughter of Mexican immigrants raised in San Gabriel, California. Her debut collection, Posada: Offerings of Witness and Refuge (Sundress Publications 2016), was written while living in a house in the shadows of Dodger Stadium in historic Solano Canyon.

Bermejo’s seconds collection, Incantation: Love Poems for Battle Sites (Mouthfeel Press 2023), explores US monuments, memorializes Black and brown bodies murdered by state sanctioned violence, and shares love poems to family, friends, and dalliances in rituals of resistance and resilience.

Most recently, Bermejo was honored with a 2023 “Distinguished Service Award” by Beyond Baroque for her work with Women Who Submit. In 2017, she was named the first “Poet in the Parks” resident at Gettysburg National Military Park in partnership with the Poetry Foundation and the National Parks Arts Foundation. During her residency she wrote first drafts of poems that would become the Locating The Dead chapbook published by the Los Angeles Print Shop and featured in the 2019 A-B Project’s “The Stacks” exhibition. The poem “Battlegrounds” was featured at Academy of American Poets’ Poem-a-Day, On Being’s Poetry Unbound, and Poetry Unbound: 50 Poems to Open Your World (W.W. Norton). Her poems and essays can be found at The Offing, American Poetry Review, Acentos Review, [PANK] Magazine, VIBE, Huizache, About Place Journal, Calyx, Santa Fe Writers Project, and many other publications.

She is a former Steinbeck fellow, Poets & Writers California Writers Exchange poetry winner, Barbara Deming Memorial Fund/Money for Women grantee, Los Angeles Central Library ALOUD newer poet, Macondo Scholar at Community of Writers, and her poetry received 3rd place in the 2015 Tucson Festival of Books literary awards. She has received residencies with Hedgebrook, Ragdale, Dorland Arts, Yefe Nof, and is a proud member of the Macondo Writers’ Workshop.

Bermejo is a cofounder of Women Who Submit, a literary organization using social media and community events to empower women and non-binary authors to submit work for publication. She received a BA in Theatre Arts from California State University, Long Beach and an MFA in Creative Writing from Antioch University Los Angeles. She teaches creative writing with Antioch University, MFA and UCLA Extension and facilitates online and in-person workshops in poetry and submission strategies across the nation. Bermejo’s writing, teaching, and organizing are inspired by her family, her Chicana experience, and her passion for creating love and comfort in chaotic times.