Dlia McDonald Woolery

Dlia Adassa McDonald Woolery is an Afro-Costa Rican and Afro-Panamanian poet and essayist. Since 1997, she has been the director of the Don Chico Creation Workshops and director of the Francisco Zúñiga Díaz Cultural Café, in San José, Costa Rica. She is the founder and columnist of the art and literary criticism blog “La coleccionista de espejos” and a founding member of the Center for the Study of Ethnic Culture in Costa Rica. Her poetic works include El séptimo círculo del obelisco (Ediciones El Café Cultura, 1993), Sangre de madera (Ediciones El Café Cultural Francisco Zúñiga Díaz, 1995), …la lluvia es una piel (Ministerio de Cultura y Juventud, 2000), Instinto tribal…: Antología poética personal (Ediciones Kike y Tetey, 2004), Voces Indelebles (co-edited with Shirley Campbell, Universidad Nacional, 2010), and Todas las voces que canta el mar (Sediento Ediciones, México, 2012). Her poetry has been the subject of study for nine North American and European universities. In 2009, Woolery became the second Central American to be inducted into the Library of Congress, and her work has been featured in Place, Language, and Identity in Afro-Costa Rican Literature by Dorothy E. Mosby (University of Missouri, 2004); Under a Quicksilver Moon (Library of Congress, 2002); Woman Unfolding the City, edited by Anne Lambright and Elizabeth Guerrero (University of Minnesota, 2005); and meridians: feminism, race, transnationalism, edited by Kwame Dixon (University of Syracuse / Universidad de Salamanca, 2003); among other publications. She was a finalist for the 2001 International Library of Poetry contest, organized by poetry.com, and received the 2004 Queen Mumuhusa trophy, awarded by the African Diaspora Association. Woolery has been a member of the Association of Colonense Writers (Panama) since 2015.