Bonnie Amesquita grew up in Illinois and Connecticut. She attended Joliet Junior College and College of St. Francis in Joliet, IL, earning her bachelor’s degree in English in 1983.
She enrolled in the master’s program in English at Northern Illinois University, earning her M.A. in 1989. That same year, she became an English instructor at NIU.
In 2010, the NIU English department awarded her their Excellence in Teaching award. Upon retirement from NIU in 2009, she entered Chicago Theological Seminary, where she earned a Certificate of Theological Studies in 2011.
She is currently working as an ELL writing tutor at the DeKalb Community Center. She and her husband, poet Ricardo Amézquita,live in DeKalb, IL.