Aya de Leon directs the Poetry for the People program in the African American Studies Department at UC Berkeley. In 2016, Kensington Books published her debut feminist heist novel Uptown Thief, which won a first place Independent Publisher Award and is a finalist for International Latino Book Awards in two categories. The Justice Hustlers series continues with The Boss in 2017 and The Accidental Mistress in 2018. Her work has also appeared in Ebony, Guernica, Writers Digest, Bitch Magazine, Essence, VICE, Huffington Post and on Def Poetry. She is also at work on a picture book about talking to children about racism and just finished a YA black girl spy novel called Going Dark.