Meet Shandela Contreras | Author and Poet in Service of Change

We had the good fortune of connecting with Shandela Contreras and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Shandela, why did you decide to pursue a creative path?
Creativity looks different for everyone, of course. For me, it’s never been occasional or fleeting. It was a spark that ignited in third grade and became a constant companion. Some discover that whichever form of art they partake in calls to them in moments; I discovered then, that it would never stop calling, that this wasn’t a spark that would fade but a flame that would define me. A fundamental part of how I could understand and interact with the world around me. My third grade teacher Mrs. Sanz assigned us to tell the journey of a river and I decided to write a poem called “The Life of a River.” I wrote a playful rhyming poem about how rivers change. How they carve new paths, reshape landscapes, carry sediment and stories downstream. The poem earned me a small recognition, but what stayed with me was the realization, a while after, that rivers and poets share something essential: both are defined by their refusal to remain static, by their commitment to transformation. Poets, like rivers, pull from the environment, their surroundings, and carry those experiences to connect to a larger body, bodies of people that could then tell a larger story, replenishing many lives. That insight has threaded through everything I’ve created since. I understood that I wanted to share art that evokes, layers, invites the reader into a shared space of feeling. I’ve always tried to resist confinement in my writing. Linear narratives with neat beginnings and tidy endings feel too restrictive, too certain. Even as I was writing fictional short stories, in my primary school days, I didn’t like the predictability of the outcome about how and where these characters would end up because it didn’t ring true to life. Poetry had offered something different. A freedom to leap between ideas, to let meaning accumulate through image or rhythm rather than plot. It’s why I gravitate toward verse, toward forms that breathe and shift. Like rivers, poems don’t move in straight lines. They meander, they pool, they rush forward and double back. Now I use those tools poetry has gifted me, in my other writing. This is what draws me to creative work: the chance to be in motion, to remain unfinished, to continue one another’s story, to be a part of another’s change.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
My art, these poems that I’ve tussled, sat with, and rehearsed in the restroom (because it has the best acoustics) has truly taken me to unforgettable stages and allowed me to meet incredible people. I’ve performed poems on stage since grade school, but my goal was to always write a book. In my senior year of high school, I got accepted into an Emerging Writers Fellowship program through Get Lit where we worked towards publishing a chapbook, and I later independently published that chapbook Mellow Ballads that move your bones in May of 2021, and that later that pushed me to write a full-length collection Every Beautiful Pen Bleeds Through (2024) and Cricket in the Slit of a Tummy (Bottlecap Press, 2025). I love the way poetry exists forever on the page, but there’s something so beautiful about allowing words to flow in the atmosphere and come alive collectively in a room of open-hearted people that will only experience that poem in that way once, even if it’s recorded. Poetry of the stage. It’s not performative. I know that sounds strange because you’re performing a piece, but the language doesn’t have to try as hard to be accepted the same way the language in the book has to. You’re moving past the language, you have your voice, your body, people can physically see the passion in your eyes. You can transform a mundane phrase into pupusas con hot fries. Have people say what? Say word. Say wait, that blends together. Mix & match, further loosen expectations, and leave an audience curious and inspired to amplify their work all in one evening. My spoken-word poetry has allowed me to grace Walt Disney Concert, the Lincoln Center of Performing Arts, the LA Times Festival of Books, Hermosas y Libros Book Festival hosted by two incredible writers Sofia Aguilar & Celeste Alyssa Gomez, Sacramento, San Jose, Paris and that’s been made possible through the individuals I’ve been blessed to meet at every stage of my poetry, but also because I believe in creating into existence. I believe if there is an opportunity you can create for yourself because you admire the organization, the cause, you know your purpose, extend yourself and your art to them and your passion will land. My week-long journey in Paris during the Olympiad Games is something I still can’t wrap my brain around. Why me? How me? With seven TALENTED poets I look up to. I wanted to take my work across the world, so I kept writing over and over, I prayed, I set a Paris reminder on my phone even after submission just so I could see the intended destination everyday, I bought a Paris sweater just because, and then I just lived because if I didn’t get the opportunity, I knew I still had that. I still had life, and with life there’s always a chance of creation. Next, I’m really hoping to finish a novel, a psychological thriller that could twist, bend, and play with the mind and have people discover the complexities of certain human behaviors through that genre. I’m excited to continue teaching Creative Writing at the senior citizen center I work at because I established the class when I was seventeen, starting off as an intern, believing the voices of the past shape the voices of the future. I edited and published their anthology Bells Toll Ad Infinitum (2022) but now we are gearing up to publish their memoir Held in Five Hands releasing January 20, 2026 where people are going to travel with these seniors of Southern California through very difficult, uplifting, and poignant histories and moments, and I’m excited to have that release to the world.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
I love to laugh, so if there is a comedy show somewhere nearby I’m definitely going to take them there! I think comedy is an underrepresented art form that takes so much skill and understanding of your audience, that I applaud and admire any stand-up comedian. A Salvadoran restaurant called Jaragua hosts a weekly event series called Pupusas and Punchlines where you can enjoy pupusas and listen to comedy sets from different comedians. There’s typically two shows a night on the weekends, and it is just a vibrant space that has beautiful artwork in the restaurant too so we’d try to catch a show. I’d probably take them to an open mic if I know of any happening and history-rooted cultural spaces. I’ll take them to Da Poetry Lounge, around Leimert, the Sims Library of Poetry, Beyond Baroque, spaces that could make them smile, laugh, even tear up with inspiration. We’d have to eat at El Cholo for one of our dinners, the original location on Western, get some of the Sonora style nachos with carnitas. At one point in the week, we’d go to the Exposition Park Rose Garden to just sit and listen to the busyness of South Los Angeles and have a picnic. If there is a really great thriller movie out the week they come, we are going to the AMC in the Grove to watch it because I just love being at the Grove and going to the Farmers Market, it has always given me a very homey, warm, and holiday vibe all-year-round.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
There is a heap of people that deserve love and praise in my story. First, I want to give gratitude to my family back home in Central America, family in the East Coast sprinkled in New York and Maryland, and my family in Los Angeles (my grandma, brother, sister, my mom and dad). A special shout-out to my mom Sandra Schmidt who attends all of my poetry performances and listens to the recordings of those same events on full-blast and repeat thereafter! I want to thank all of the organizations that have truly made a significant impact on my life, there’s WriteGirl, Brotherhood Crusade, Get Lit, Urban Word NYC, Beyond Baroque, Troy Camp, and the Neighborhood Academic Initiative program whom without them my pursuit of higher education would have been a very difficult road taken. I want to thank the donors who contribute to nonprofit organizations like the ones I just mentioned. Your community-minded generosity is a gift to the future and the palm you keep extending will continue to reach and touch lives beyond. Thank you to the foundation of my learning Menlo Elementary school (Mrs.Sanz, Mrs.Bowen, Mrs.Salcedo, Mrs.Neris, Mrs.Lewis, Mrs.Jimenez) and Foshay High School. Thank you to the City of Los Angeles Ahmanson Senior Center, my coworkers, the Director and Coordinator, all of the wonderful members. Thank you to the beautiful Mrs.Alejandra and Luis Chavez, Sophia, Paula, Leo, and Lukas for the abundance of love. Thank you to all my friends who’ve supported me and continue to, if I name them, I’ll do a disservice and forget a few as I’ve done before, but I want to give a special shout out to my friend Jarred because I vividly remember forgetting to thank him at an event where I thanked every single individual I know by name and he’s supported me since the day we met and reads/ listens to my bad drafts, as well as my friend Alexa. Thank you to the friends I’ve known since grade school and since we were wolverines! Thank you to the Chief Service Officer of California Josh Fryday. Thank you to the beautiful Watson family. Shout out to one of my favorite people and local upcoming artist 42Breezy—highly suggest listening to his music! I listen to Flexin & Finnessin’ every morning as my motivational anthem, thank you for inspiring me slim. Thank you to all the poets, writers, all the creatives I’ve come across in my life, and everyone who holds my words on their shelf. Thank you to the LEAP Program. Thank you to Selena Quintanilla who has said the impossible is always possible. Thank you God.

Website: https://shandela-contreras.weebly.com/

Instagram: instagram.com/shandelaa

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shandela-contreras/

Other: https://shandelacontreras.myshopify.com/

Image Credits
Axel Koester, Steven Reign, Megan Schmidt, Kat Trinidad, Auden Wood, Mayor Garcetti Press Team, CaliforniaVolunteers Press