Leonarda Carranza was born in El Salvador to a family of Indigenous and African ancestry. She holds a PhD in Social Justice Education from the University of Toronto. Her children's book, Abuelita and Me, will be published by Annick Press in winter 2022. Her essays have been published in Room, The New Quarterly, Briarpatch, Humber Literary Review, and Best Canadian Essays. She is the winner of Briarpatch Magazine's seventh annual Writing in the Margins contest, was shortlisted for PRISM International's short forms contest, and was the winner of Room's 2018 short forms contest for her piece, "White Spaces Brown Bodies." She lives in Brampton