A woman with long black curly hair, wearing a beige suit and black top, sitting against a plain white background.

Yo soy Melania.

I’m a first-generation American Two-Time Audie Award Winning Author, Educator, Speaker and Poet with a Public Library Card and Big Dreams.

A Few Facts About Me:

  • I grew up in Public Housing on the Lower East Side of New York City.

  • By the age of ten, I had my first profitable business selling batata (purple sweet potato) ice cream out of my grandmother’s Caribbean kitchen during the summers.

  • My favorite girl groups are Destiny’s Child and 3LW.

It’s scrapbook time

Melania Luisa Marte is a first-generation American writer and performer. She was born in the Bronx and raised in the Lower East Side of New York City. Her multi-cultural upbringing inspires her to write about navigating the world as a native Spanish speaker of Black Dominican descent. She ranked 5th at the 2018 Women of The World Poetry Slam Competition and was a finalist at the 2018 Individual World Poetry Slam Competition in San Diego, California. Her most viral poem, “Afro-Latina” was featured by Instagram on their IG TV for National Poetry Month and has garnered over 9 million views. 

Her work has also been featured by Ain’t I Latina, The Root, Teen Vogue, Facebook, Telemundo, Remezcla, and People En Español. Melania’s won two Audie awards for her most recent voice-over work co-narrating novel-in-verse, CLAP WHEN YOU LAND by National Book Award-winning and New York Times bestselling author Elizabeth Acevedo.

Marte has taught workshops at a variety of educational and literary institutions across the United States including Simmons university, University of Texas, Harvard, Paul Quinn College, Texas A&M University, University of Massachusetts, and many more.

Marte’s latest commissioned work includes a commercial poem for McDonald’s ‘Hacer Mas’ scholarship campaign as well as starring in and writing a unique poem for Facebook’s 2020 Heritage Month celebration.  In 2021 Melania co-wrote and starred in Instagram´s Somos Limitless campaign. She is also co-writer of The Braid of Time, a short film now streaming on Netflix. Marte’s debut collection of poetry, PLANTAINS AND OUR BECOMING was published by Tiny Reparations, an imprint of Plume and Penguin Random House. You can follow her journey on social media: @MelaTocaTierra.

“How they cut our roots and yet still we birthed 1,000 more. It’s how we are always becoming exactly who we have always been.”

Woman and child with palm leaves, wearing sunglasses and a hat, smiling outdoors.
A smiling couple sitting at a wooden table in a tropical-style restaurant with bamboo decor and a thatched roof.
Person in a green jacket reading from the book "Plantains and Our Becoming" by Melania Luisa Marte at a microphone.