Elizabeth Pérez (she/her) is a writer and an associate professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

As the daughter of Cuban immigrants, poetry is her first language.

Last year (2024), she was named one of fifteen finalists for the inaugural Cardinal Poetry Prize, judged by Robert Pinsky and sponsored by Wesleyan University Press. The unpublished manuscript submitted for the Prize was entitled, “Lessons in Cuban Cosmology: Fifty-Two Poems & a Villanelle.” This year, she was one of nine finalists for the 2025 Alta California Chapbook Prize, as chosen by Richard Blanco and hosted by Gunpowder Press, for the chapbook submission “Refugee Lotteries.” Her poetry has appeared in two edited volumes and several journals, most recently Chicana/Latina Studies and Meridians.

As a scholar—and profesora to her students—Pérez specializes in Black Atlantic traditions and LGBTQ spirituality. She is the author of two award-winning scholarly books on Afro-Caribbean religions based on ethnographic and historical research.