Lesley Valdes is an instructor of piano and creative writing for the Fleisher Art Memorial in Philadelphia. A native of Miami, Florida, she won a scholarship in piano to the Peabody Conservatory of Music in Baltimore, where she received her Bachelor of Music, and from Warren Wilson College in North Carolina, for the MFA in poetry.

A former classical music critic for the San Jose Mercury News and the Philadelphia Inquirer, she also served as critic-at-large for Temple University’s WRTI, 90.1 FM. Articles have appeared in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, American Poetry Review among other national publications. Her chapbook, collection of poems, The Starlight Room, is forthcoming from Finishing Line Press in 2024.