Retired teacher and researcher at the University of Porto. She holds a Ph.D. on Emily Dickinson and has developed her academic research around Comparative Poetics, Feminist and Queer Studies and has coordinated several international projects. She currently belongs to the Board of Directors of Instituto de Literatura Comparada Margarida Losa, where she coordinates the international group Intersexualities. She has written over twenty books, among poetry (such as Minha Senhora de Quê, Às Vezes o Paraíso, A Génese do Amor, Entre dois rios e outras noites, Inversos, Poesia 1990-2010, or Vozes), theatre (Próspero morreu) and children’s literature (such as Gaspar, o Dedo Diferente, A História da Aranha Leopoldina, A Tempestade, or Como Tu), or fiction (Ara). She has translated poets like Eunice de Souza, John Updike, Emily Dickinson, or William Shakespeare. Theatre plays have been staged around her poetry and her books for children. Her books are published in several countries, such as England, USA, Spain, Brazil, France, Sweden, Italy, Holland, Venezuela, or Colombia. She was awarded several prizes and distinctions, among which the Correntes d’Escritas/Casino da Póvoa prize, the Giuseppe Acerbi Prize, the Grande Prémio da APE (Associação Portuguesa de Escritores), or the PEN prize for Fiction. Her most recent books are Ara (fiction, Sextante, 2013) Escuro (poetry, Assírio & Alvim, 2014) and 31 Sonetos de William Shakespeare (Relógio D’Água, 2015). An anthology of her poetry has just been published by Oxbow Press, translated by Margaret Jull Costa, under the title The Art of Being a Tiger. Also, a book of essays on her work will come out by Peter Lang (Poetry, Beauty and Resistance in Ana Luísa Amaral, Eds. Claire Williams and Teresa Louro). She is currently preparing a book of poems and a book of essays.