As a freelance writer and consultant, Ms. Ayala currently helps develop, edits and promotes curricula and other educational materials – in both her native Spanish as well as English – for innovative education programs and national organizations.  She runs professional development workshops for teachers, conducts specialized residencies in public and private schools (K-12), while presenting her poetry to diverse audiences around the U.S.  She is a member of the Board of Directors of Teaching for Change, and serves as an advisor on its Teaching for Equity advisory board.   

Ms. Ayala is the author of one book of poetry, Wild Animals on the Moon (Curbstone, 1997), selected by the New York City Public Library as one of 1999’s Books for the Teen Age.  Her poetry has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies around the U.S. and beyond – among them, Callaloo, The Village Voice, The Caribbean Writer, The Massachusetts Review, Red River and Potomac Reviews, Hanging Loose, and Terra Incognita.   

Ms. Ayala is the recipient of the 2001 Larry Neal Writers Award for Poetry of the District of Columbia’s Commission on the Arts and Humanities, received Special Congressional Recognition for Community Service from U.S. Congresswoman Rosa deLauro, the Connecticut Latinas in Leadership Award, the Trailblazer Arts Award, and the 2000 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Legacy of Environmental Justice Award.

During a 1,000+ mile hike of the Appalachian Trail in the spring of 2000, Ms. Ayala walked from Springer Mountain in Georgia to Wingdale, New York.  She values the outdoors – supports the efforts of women to connect with their bodies – and celebrates the sacred connection between the individual and the earth.