Cristina J. Baptista,

Ph.D., English

Writer, Poet, Researcher, American Literature Specialist, English Teacher

Cristina J. Baptista is a first-generation Portuguese-American educator, writer, and author of the poetry collections Taking Her Back (Atmosphere Press, 2021)—which was a 2022 Connecticut Book Awards Finalist—and The Drowning Book (Finishing Line Press, 2017). Her poem “Pomology” won the 2020 National Hackney Literary Award in Poetry. Her work also appears or is forthcoming in Nimrod International Journal of Prose and Poetry, Dogwood, Birmingham Arts Journal, Structo, The Cortland Review, CURA, 3Elements Literary Review, and elsewhere. In 2014, Cristina was selected as one of roughly 85 people (or “Voyagers”) in the world to journey on the 38th Voyage of the Charles W. Morgan, an 1841 wooden whaleship that is the last remaining one in the world. For the Voyage, led through Mystic Seaport Museum, she became a poet-documenter of the immigrant whaling experience. Several of her poetry collection manuscripts have been finalists in sundry competitions and are currently seeking a permanent home at a publisher. In 2012, she was the recipient of an Academy of American Poets Award.

Cristina has a Ph.D. in English and teaches various literature and writing courses in Connecticut. She is also a logophile, bibliophile, and perpetual armchair traveler; a lover of classic films and live theatre; a taphophile, a miniaturist enthusiast; a history and museum lover; and an animal an Nature lover. She dwells in possibility, regardless of its forms.