Amaris Castillo

Amaris Castillo is a Brooklyn native and daughter of Dominican immigrants. She is a journalist and the author of Bodega Stories, out September 8, 2026 from the University Press of Florida. Passionate about literary citizenship, Amaris is the lead book reviewer for the Dominican Writers Association and a contributor for book reviews and author interviews for Latinx in Publishing.

Amaris was a prize finalist for the 2022 Elizabeth Nunez Caribbean-American Writers’ Prize by the Brooklyn Caribbean Literary Festival, and longlisted for the same prize. She has received mentorships from the Periplus Collective, Las Musas, Kweli Journal, and Latinx in Publishing, and received a Walter Dean Myers Grant from We Need Diverse Books. In the journalism world, Amaris has reported for The New York Times, the Lowell Sun, the Bradenton Herald, Remezcla, Latina Magazine, Parents Latina Magazine, and elsewhere. In 2018 she was named New England Journalism’s Newsroom Rising Star by the New England Society of News Editors.

She holds an MS from Columbia Journalism School and a BA in journalism from the University of South Florida. She works at the Poynter Institute for Media Studies where she is a contributor to Poynter.org and a research/writing assistant for the NPR Public Editor’s Office. She lives in the Tampa Bay area with her family. Visit Amaris online at www.amariscastillo.com or on Instagram @amariswriter.