Although her parents divorced when she was young, Toni Margarita Plummer grew up supported by both of them and their community in South El Monte outside of Los Angeles. This community included her extended family and her schools where she graduated at the top of her class.  She started writing at a young age inspired by the novels and poetry her father would read and the stories her mother shared at bedtime. One of these stories that she connected with the most was Little Women by Louisa May Alcott, because she saw her sisters and herself in the characters of the March sisters. This sense of connection to characters strongly influences her writing today. Her goal is for her writing to connect with her audiences and for them to see themselves in her characters because of their familiarity. Many of these coming of age stories and those of characters finding their way through relationships and life are inspired by her own experiences. In her writings, she makes a conscious effort to portray the Mexican-American neighborhood from her childhood. Still, she does not make a concerted effort to explain her characters’ ethnicity. While she often writes about young Latinos, she strives to make that characterization organic and let their traits develop unconsciously. This is evident in her collection The Bolero of Andi Rowe for which she won the Miguel Mármol Prize. When it comes to her success as a writer, Toni says the connection with her readers is the most important thing to her. Toni describes her idea of success as having her works bring familiarity to her audience and hearing from them that they connected with her characters or their experiences. Outside of writing, she is a mother to a toddler, a freelance editor, and a contributor to several literary journals. She has several ideas of potential next works. She believes that while collaboration and getting advice from other authors is helpful, your works are your own and the most important thing is to pursue your own voice as an author.