María Bird Picó is an award-winning, fully-bilingual Puerto Rican writer, screenwriter and journalist. She has a master´s degree in Creative Writing from Universidad del Sagrado Corazón, and another in Latin American Affairs from New York University. She completed an intensive screenwriting workshop in Los Angeles and New York City sponsored by the National Association of Latino Independent Producers. Her debut as a writer took place in the 1990s when two of her short stories came out in Te traigo un cuento, an anthology printed by the University of Puerto Rico´s publishing arm. Her novel, El día que tu secreto se hizo mío, garnered second place in the Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña´s 2015 national literary awards in the youth category. Her first collection of short stories, Tras esas gafas de sol, was selected as one of 2014´s best local books by the literary critic section of El Nuevo Día.  The English-language version, Behind Shades, came out in 2020. PEN Internacional de P.R. granted her first children´s book, El vuelo mágico, an honorary mention in its 2019 literary awards. María is also the screenwriter of La mecedora, a short that is part of the Voces de la mujer film project produced by Puerto Rico´s Film Commission. Aside from always using sunglasses, which she says make her feel protected from other things besides the sun in her beloved island, she loves to travel, write fiction, read, binge watch movies and TV series and spend time with her Tico husband, her two children and her dogs, Diva, Turbo and Comay.