Ciara Alfaro is a Chicana writer from Lubbock, Texas.

Her work has appeared in The Best American Essays 2023, Prairie Schooner, Swamp Pink, The Best American Notables 2025, and more. She is the winner of Iron Horse Literary Review’s 2022 PhotoFinish Contest, a 2023 AWP Intro Journals Prize, and Southeast Review's 2024 Ned Stuckey-French Nonfiction Contest. A Pushcart Prize and Monarch Queer Literary Awards nominee, Ciara has received support from Hedgebrook, Monson Arts, the Good Hart Artist Residency, and the Anderson Center. She received her MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Minnesota and her BA from Colgate University, where she served as the 2024-25 Olive B. O’Connor Fellow in nonfiction. 

She currently teaches creative writing at the University of Minnesota.