Sofia Quintero is a writer and producer who tells stories that meet audiences where they are and take them someplace better.

Raised in a working-class Puerto Rican-Dominican family in the Bronx, the self-proclaimed Ivy League homegirl graduated from Columbia University with a BA in history-sociology and an MPA from its School of International and Public Affairs. She began her first career as a policy analyst and advocate working for various nonprofit organizations and government agencies including the Vera Institute of Justice, Hispanic AIDS Forum, and the New York City Independent Budget Office. After years of working on diverse policy issues, however, Sofia heeded her muse to pursue an entertainment career.

Determined to write edgy yet intelligent novels for women who love hip-hop even when hip-hop fails to love them in return, Sofía wrote her debut novel EXPLICIT CONTENT (Penguin 2004) under the pen name Black Artemis. Booklist said of her debut, Fans of Sister Souljah s THE COLDEST WINTER EVER will find this debut novel just as tantalizing. . . Since then Sofia has authored fIve more novels and almost twice as many short stories and novellas including one for the children s anthology WHAT YOU WISH FOR, the proceeds of which go to build libraries for Darfuri children in Chad. She has been published by every major house in YA, chick lit, erotica and what has been described as sister-centered hip-hop noir.

Regardless of medium or genre, Sofia s stories are usually ahead of the curve, offering nuanced depictions of underrepresented communities years before the mainstream entertainment industries take up the challenge. Because her fiction spans genres and reflects an intentional hybrid between the commercial and the literary while exploiting popular tropes to raise socio-political issues for broad audiences, Sofia s novels are read in college classrooms across the nation and in multiple disciplines including English, Sociology, Women s Studies, Criminal Justice, Latino studies, African American Studies, Education and Hip-Hop Studies. Her novel PICTURE ME ROLLIN about a Latina ex-offender who s obsessed with Tupac Shakur has been assigned alongside Asha Bandele s THE PRISONER S WIFE and Margaret Atwood s THE HANDMAID S TALE.

For the past two decades, Sofia had been a teaching artist for some of New York City s cutting edge literary organizations such the National Book Foundation and Urban Word NYC. In fact, Sofia co-founded her own nonprofit organization Chica Luna Productions with the mission to identify, support and develop young women of color seeking to create socially conscious entertainment. For its groundbreaking work in combining youth development, arts education and cultural activism, Chica Luna Productions was the recipient of the Union Square Award in 2006.

Sofia earned an MFA in Writing and Producing Television from the TV Writers Studio at Long Island University in 2012 and was selected a 2017 Made in NY Writers Room with a pilot based on her novel BURN which follows a Latina bail bond agent in the South Bronx with a traumatic past and an unorthodox approach to business. She was a writers assistant on THE FIRST, a Hulu original series created by Beau Willimon (HOUSE OF CARDS) who was her MINY mentor. In addition to developing several projects for television, she s working on her seventh novel #Krissette. Inspired by the #SayHerName movement, #Krissette will be published by Knopf Books for Young Readers in 2020. Next year Blackstone Publishing will also be re-releasing Sofia s Black Artemis backlist as audiobooks.