River Coello

River Coello is a Guayaquil-born cultural weaver based in Orlando. They are proudly Andean, kariwarmi, kuir, and disabled.

River’s latest multimedia and multilingual collection, HAMPI (For the Birds Trapped in Airports, 2024), explores their early reconnection to the Andean cosmovision. It received a Florida Book Award, an International Latino Book Award, an Independent Publisher Book Award, and a Nautilus Book Award. The collection, reimagined as an immersive experience, will be exhibited in Seattle at Jack Straw Cultural Center and in Orlando at the LGBT+ Center thanks to United Arts of Central Florida. Their previous chapbook-length collections, faith/fe (2021) and self/ser (2019), were published by Homie House Press.

River was an Orlando Poet Laureate finalist and received an International WCS Award in media and creative influence. They have also received support from the Poetry Foundation, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Lambda Literary, the Canada Council for the Arts, among others. Their work is featured in the anthologies Desde esta orilla (Digitus Indie Publishers, 2026), Emerge (Lambda Literary, 2025), eXpuestXs (El Beisman Press, 2024), and Sweeter Voices Still (Belt Publishing, 2021), as well as the University of Chicago Magazine, ICONIQA Mag/Book, and the Chicago Reader.