Contributor Bios
South African Abigail George has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize (“Wash Away My Sins”), and Best of the Net awards for her poetry published in Deaf Poets Society and for an essay published in Synchronized Chaos. She is the recipient of two writing grants from the National Arts Council in Johannesburg, another from the Centre for the Book in Cape Town, and one from the Eastern Cape Provincial Arts and Culture Council in East London. She won her first writing competition for Upbeat Magazine (a national magazine in South Africa) in high school. She is the founder of the blog African Renaissance, and also writes for Goodreads, Great Health Watch, and Newslineplus). She is an editor, aspiring filmmaker and playwright, poet, essayist, and writer of chapbooks, novels, novellas, grants, and short stories. She briefly studied film at Newtown Film and Television School in Johannesburg. She was educated in Port Elizabeth and Swaziland. She is the Contributing Editor for African Writer Magazine based in New Jersey, and an editor at Mwanaka Media and Publishing in Zimbabwe. She has written op-ed pieces for local newspapers in the past, has written columns for the South African travel magazine Go, and has a piece forthcoming in Weg. Her latest books are The Scholarship Girl: Life Writing, Parks and Recreation, Of Smoke Flesh and Bone: Poems Against Depression (Mwanaka Media and Publishing), and Anatomy of Melancholy (Praxis), a chapbook which was released in 2020. Her next book will be published by Gazebo Books. She was interviewed by the BBC Radio 4. In the meantime she has worked on a screenplay that addresses gender-based violence. She also wrote for a symposium for a year for Ovi Magazine in Finland. Her latest book is Letter to Petya Dubarova which was released by Gazebo Books (Australia) in August 2022 by the publisher Xavier Hennekinne. Letter to Petya Dubarova was Pick Of The Week in The Sydney Morning Herald, Brisbane Times and The Age. It was mentioned in the August 2022 issue of the Gleaner. She was the editor of The Migrant Online and was recently appointed as an editor for The Compendium. She is the Portfolio Head for Campaigns and Projects for the National Writers Association of South Africa and is currently working on establishing satellite libraries and applying for funding. She is the writer of twelve books: four poetry books, one self-published collection of short stories, a book of life writing, two collections of short stories, two novellas, and two e-books, available for free download from the Ovi Bookstore. Her African publisher is Tendai Rinos Mwanaka. Her publisher in Finland is Thanos Kalamidas. Other e-books of hers are available on Issuu under Ovi Magazine Publisher Publications. She has served as a judge for a writing competition, a keynote speaker, a panelist, and has run a poetry workshop at the Mandela Bay Book Fair Roadshow in September 2021. Her essay “The Case of the Pelican” was chosen as one of Afrokritik’s 20 Remarkable African Essays for 2021. This year she was invited to the Deep South Writing Retreat and spent a week on a farm outside Makhanda/Grahamstown alongside Joan Metelerkamp, Siza Nkosi, Alan Finlay and Mxolisi Nyezwa. She was interviewed about her book Letter To Petya Dubarova by Professor Darryl David at the Madibaland World Literary Festival held in Richmond from the 2-5 November 2022.
Aida Bardissi is a doctoral student at NYU Middle East Studies, where she researches Egyptian film of the mid-twentieth century and its concerted national project(s), specialising in race, indigeneity, and constructed nationhood. Her poems have been featured or are forthcoming in Mizna, the Indiana Review, Palette Poetry, and Frontier Poetry. She speaks four languages but dreams in one. She can be found on Twitter and Instagram.
Alberto Martínez-Márquez. Bayamón, Puerto Rico, 1966. Escritor, traductor, editor, fotógrafo aficionado, artesano y gestor cultural. Ha publicado numerosos ensayos críticos en revistas arbitradas. Entre sus libros, se encuentran: El límite volcado: Antología de la Generación de Poetas de los Ochenta [en colaboración con Mario R. Cancel, 2000; Premio PEN Club de Puerto Rico]; Las formas del vértigo [poesía, 2001]; Frutos subterráneos [poesía, 2007]; Contramundos [cuentos, 2010]; Contigo he aprendido a conocer la noche [poesía, 2011]; Muerte en familia [poesía, 2013]; Avatares de la palabra [ensayos, 2016]; La lógica de los ardides [Premio de Poesía del PEN Club de Puerto Rico, 2016] e Historias amarradas [en colaboración con Emma J. Rodríguez, 2020]. Asimismo, ha publicado el volumen de obras breves y performances Teatro Desechable [teatro, 2020] y un segundo libro de cuentos, intitulado Supongamos que soy Enderman [2022]. Es fundador y editor de la revista electrónica Letras Salvajes (2003-presente). Actualmente es el director del Departamento de Humanidades de la Universidad de Puerto Rico en Aguadilla, donde labora como docente desde 1997.
Alicia Cecilia Montero was born in Maracaibo, Venezuela. She obtained a B.A. in literature, an M.A. in Venezuelan literature, and a Ph.D in Human Sciences from Universidad del Zulia (LUZ), in Maracaibo, where she is currently a professor. Her poems have been published in national and regional journals in Venezuela. Primeras personas (First Person Plural) was the winner of the 2018 poetry slam contest in Maracaibo. She has two unpublished collections that she is currently working on. / Alicia Cecilia Montero nació en Maracaibo, Venezuela. Obtuvo una Licenciatura en Literatura, una Maestría en Literatura Venezolana y un doctorado en Ciencias Humanas de la Universidad del Zulia (LUZ), en Maracaibo, donde actualmente es profesora. Sus poemas han sido publicados en revistas nacionales y regionales en Venezuela. Primeras personas fue el ganador del concurso de slam poético del 2018 en Maracaibo. Actualmente la autora se encuentra trabajando en dos colecciones de poesía. .
Alina Stefanescu was born in Romania and lives in Birmingham, Alabama with her partner and several intense mammals. Recent books include a creative nonfiction chapbook, Ribald (Bull City Press Inch Series, Nov. 2020) and Dor, which won the Wandering Aengus Press Prize (September, 2021). Her debut fiction collection, Every Mask I Tried On, won the Brighthorse Books Prize (April 2018). Alina’s poems, essays, and fiction can be found in Prairie Schooner, North American Review, World Literature Today, Pleiades, Poetry, BOMB, Crab Creek Review, and others. She serves as poetry editor for several journals, reviewer and critic for others, and Co-Director of PEN America’s Birmingham Chapter. She is currently working on a novel-like creature. More online at www.alinastefanescuwriter.com.
Álvaro Calfucoy Gutiérrez. Santiaw tuwlu, 1997 tripantu mew. Poeta ngey, mapuzungun kimelfe. Wariache ngey ñi l’aku ñi mülekan Santiaw mew, welu l’afkenche küpalme ngelu. Chillkatuy Lingüística y Literatura Hispánica con mención Literatura Universidad de Chile mew. Fewla amulniey feychi kimelwe ruka mew kiñe Literatura magister. 2020 tripantu wüla, kimeltukey mapuzungun Universidad de Chile mew, kakewme püle kafey. Wewi tati poesía concurso “Voces para nuevos tiempos” pingelu, Extensión UNAB ñi nentufiel, epuchi categoría (19-25 niechi wecheke che), 2021 tripantu mew. Ñi küzaw pengey Maleza, escritos literarios diversos pingechi lifru, kiñe literatura proyektu chew ñi kontulefun Comité Editorial mew. Fanten mew amulniey kiñe we rulpazungun blog, chew ñi nentukey literatura zungu, Waria Koyam pingelu. Kelluniefi mapuzungun ñi zuam kiñe lifru pingechi Tapiwe koyagtun 1825. ¿Autonomía o asimilación? Tres siglos de agencia política mapuche, historiador Filip Escudero Quiroz-Aminao ñi wirintukuel, Ediciones Kangaya mew, 2022. Ñi küzaw mew zungukey fill nütram: mapuzungun ñi mongeltun, chumngechi ñi rulpazunguael fachi kewün, waria mapuche ñi zuam ka.
Álvaro Calfucoy Gutiérrez. Santiago, 1997. Poeta, profesor de mapuzungun. Nieto de la diáspora mapuche, ascendencia l’afkenche. Licenciado el Lingüística y Literatura Hispánica con mención en Literatura por la Universidad de Chile. Cursa el Magíster en Literatura de la misma casa de estudios. Desde el año 2020 enseña mapuzungun tanto en la Universidad de Chile como en espacios autogestionados. Ganador del concurso de poesía para jóvenes “Voces para nuevos tiempos” de Extensión UNAB, categoría 19-25 años, 2021. Sus textos pueden leerse en Maleza, escritos literarios diversos, proyecto literario en el que fue parte del Comité Editorial. Cuenta con un incipiente trabajo de traducción literaria al mapuzungun, titulado Waria Koyam. Realizó la asesoría del mapuzungun en el libro Tapiwe koyagtun 1825. ¿Autonomía o asimilación? Tres siglos de agencia política mapuche del historiador Filip Escudero Quiroz-Aminao, Ediciones Kangaya, 2022. Su trabajo literario aborda temáticas relacionadas a la recuperación del mapuzungun, las tensiones en la traducción de dicha lengua, y el ser mapuche urbano.
Álvaro Calfucoy Gutiérrez (Santiago, 1997) is a poet, Mapudungun professor, and grandchild of the Mapuche diaspora. He is of l’afkenche heritage. He holds a degree in Linguistics and Hispanic Literature with a minor in Literature from the University of Chile, and is currently a Master’s candidate in the same field at the University of Chile. He has taught Mapudungun at the University of Chile as well as in private classes. The winner of the 2021 “Voces para nuevos tiempos” contest for poets ages 19-25, hosted by the Extensión UNAB program at the Andrés Bello National University, his writing can be found in Maleza, escritos literarios diversos, where he has also served on the Editorial Committee. Additionally, Álvaro Calfucoy Gutiérrez is working on Waria Koyam, a Mapudungun translation project, and has published the index to the Mapudungun in the book Tapiwe koyagtun 1825 ¿Autonomía o asimilación? Tres siglos de agencia política mapuche (Ediciones Kangaya, 2022). His literary work explores the rehabilitation of the Mapudungun language and its problems in translation, as well as the reality of the contemporary urban Mapuche.
Blanca Wiethüchter López was one of the emblematic female voices of Bolivian poetry during the end of the 20th century. Her writing spans three decades, from the late 1970s to the year of her death in 2004. She graduated with a degree in literature from the Universidad Mayor de San Andrés in La Paz, Bolivia, and Educational Sciences from the University of La Sorbonne. She later obtained a master’s degree in Latin American Literature from the University of Paris in France.
Burgi Zenhaeusern (she/her) is the author of the chapbook Behind Normalcy (CityLit Press, 2020), winner of the Harriss Poetry Prize. She co-edited the translations of the poetry anthology Knocking on the Door of the White House (Zozobra Publishing, 2017). Her work has appeared in Small Orange, Seneca Review, and Diagram, among others, and has received a Pushcart nomination from Moist Poetry Journal. She is a consulting editor for River Mouth Review. She can be found at https://burgizenhaeusern.com and on Twitter.
Chip Livingston is the mixed-blood Creek author of Saints of the Republic: poems (January 2023) and editor of Love, Loosha: The Letters of Lucia Berlin and Kenward Elmslie (November 2022). His poems have appeared in Poem A Day, Ploughshares, Prairie Schooner, Cincinnati Review, and other journals and anthologies. Chip teaches in the low-rez MFA program at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He lives in Montevideo, Uruguay.
Chris Andrews lives on Wangal land in Australia. He has published two collections of poems: Cut Lunch (Indigo, 2002) and Lime Green Chair (Waywiser, 2012). He has also translated books of prose fiction by Roberto Bolaño, César Aira, Selva Almada and Kaouther Adimi. His study of the Oulipo, How to Do Things with Forms, was published by McGill-Queen’s University Press in 2022.
Clara Burghelea is a Romanian-born poet with an MFA in Poetry from Adelphi University. A recipient of the Robert Muroff Poetry Award, her poems and translations have appeared in Ambit, Waxwing, The Cortland Review and elsewhere. Her second poetry collection Praise the Unburied was published in 2021 with Chaffinch Press. She is the Review Editor of Ezra, An Online Journal of Translation.
Cristina A. Bejan is an award-winning Romanian-American historian, theatre artist, and poet. A Rhodes and Fulbright scholar, she currently teaches history and theatre at Metropolitan State University of Denver. Bejan received her Masters and DPhil (PhD) in Modern History from the University of Oxford and her BA in Philosophy (Honors) from Northwestern University. A playwright and spoken word poet (performing under her stage name Lady Godiva), her creative work has appeared in the US, UK, Romania, and Vanuatu. Bejan runs the arts group Bucharest Inside the Beltway. She has published a poetry book (Green Horses on the Walls), history book (Intellectuals and Fascism in Interwar Romania), a play in the anthology Voices on the Move (eds. Domnica Radulescu and Roxana Cazan), and 64 articles (and coauthored the African continent introduction) for The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos, 1933-1945: Vol. 3. Please visit cristinaabejan.com for more info!
Elidio La Torre Lagares es autor de Wonderful Wasteland and other natural disasters, seleccionado para el New Voices Series de la University Press of Kentucky (2019). Aguacerando, su manuscrito inédito, resultó finalista en el certamen de poesía Octavio Paz. En agosto de 2022 su novela Correr tras el viento fue publicada por Editorial Verbum en Madrid. Es profesor de escritura creativa y literatura en la Universidad de Puerto Rico.
Elizaria Flores. Caracas, Venezuela, 1961. Autora de El torpe andar (2022, LP5 Editora). Reside en Santiago de Chile. Madre y abuela. Bordadora. Licenciada en Letras, mención Literatura Hispanoamericana y Venezolana, y Magister Scientiae en Lingüística (2013) por la Universidad de Los Andes (ULA Mérida, Venezuela). Profesora de la misma Universidad (2013-2019). Textos poéticos en las revistas Letralia; Cuadrivium; Actual-Universidad de Los Andes; El Salmón. Revista de poesía y Asymptote; y en las antologías Hacedoras. Mil voces femeninas por la literatura venezolana. Tomo I (editorial Lector Cómplice) y Una cicatriz donde se escriben despedidas. Antología de poesía venezolana en Chile (editorial Libros del Amanecer). Su poemario Un solo mediodía largo (2004) obtuvo la mención especial en el XVI concurso literario DAES de la Universidad de Los Andes. Mérida, Mérida.
Eric Abalajon is currently a lecturer at the University of the Philippines Visayas, Iloilo. His works have appeared in Ani, Katitikan, Loch Raven Review, Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, The Tiger Moth Review, Dx Machina, and elsewhere. Recently his poems are included in the collections Sobbing in Seafood City (Sampaguita Press, 2022) and Footprints: An Anthology of New Ecopoetry (Broken Sleep Books, 2022). He can be found on Instagram at @jacob_laneria, and on Twitter at @JLaneria. He lives near Iloilo City.
Ernesto González Barnert (30 de agosto de 1978, Temuco, Chile). Su obra poética ha sido reconocida con el Premio Pablo Neruda de Poesía Joven 2018, Premio Nacional de Poesía Mejor Obra 2014, Premio Nacional Eduardo Anguita 2009, Mención Honorífica del Concurso Internacional de Poesía Nueva York Poetry Press 2020, entre otros. Además, ha sido beneficiario de becas y proyectos concursables de su país. Entre sus últimos libros se encuentran la antología de poemas de amor: Éramos estrellas, éramos música, éramos tiempo; Playlist; Ningún hombre es una isla; Trabajos de luz sobre el agua; Coto de caza; Cul de sac; Equipaje ligero y más. Es cineasta documentalista de la Universidad Academia Humanismo Cristiano y tiene un Diplomado en Estética del Cine de la Escuela de Cine de Chile. Productor cultural de la Fundación Pablo Neruda. Reside en Santiago de Chile. Los poemas de esta muestra pertenecen al libro Venado tuerto.
Estelle Coppolani is a poet, writer and playwright born in La Réunion. Their work interrogates Creole poetic heritage, in particular, its capacity for renewal from the old order. Their theory and practice of poetic encryption (or les cryptages intracommunautaires) in La Réunion invokes a cultural phenomenon used by subaltern communities to build and preserve their archives. A frequent collaborator with artists across disciplines (design, video, sculpture), they are invested in transoceanic narratives, and work to create poetic solidarity between the Caribbean and Indian Ocean. Through their current fellowship with Mondes Nouveaux and Patrimoine et Création du Département de la Réunion, they are crafting two writing projects linking spiritual practices, Indian Ocean mythologies, and anti-colonial traditions.
Genesis Barrera is a Xicanx writer, multimedia artist, and librarian. She moved to Rhode Island to attend Brown University, graduating in 2021. Genesis is a founding member of What Cheer Writers Club in Providence, where she has received numerous honorariums for her bilingual (Spanish/English) and trilingual (Nahuatl/Spanish/English) poetry. She has been featured in Brown’s Latinx literary magazine Somos and Harvard’s Palabritas. In Spring 2022, she worked on short form historical fiction as a writer-in-residence at Linden Place, a historic mansion and museum in Bristol. She lives in Central Falls.
George Zamalea is a novelist, essayist, poet, humorist, playwright, and short story writer who lives in California with his family. His works has appeared in the Screech Owl, Hermeneutic Chaos Literary Journal, and Indiana Voice Journal, among others. He can be found on Instagram and Facebook.
H.S. Shivaprakash is considered one of the most influential voices in Kannada literature today, with nine books of poems, thirteen plays, and four works in Kannada to his credit. The recipient of the Sahitya Akademi Award and the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award, he has also received the highest awards in Karnataka for literature and drama. His literary works have been translated into most Indian languages, as well as into English, French, German, Italian and Spanish. His plays are widely staged in Karnataka and other parts of India. The former editor of the Sahitya Akademi journal, Indian Literature, H.S. Shivaprakash is a professor of Theatre Studies at the School of Arts and Aesthetics, Jawaharlal Nehru University. Since June 2011, he has been serving as the director of the Tagore Centre, Indian Embassy, Berlin. I Keep Vigil of Rudra, his translation of the Kannada vachanas, was published by Penguin in 2010.
Héctor Pérez Marcano. Nació en 1930 en Río Caribe, Estado Sucre, Venezuela. Se graduó de Bachiller en 1952 en el Liceo Nocturno “Juan Vicente González”. Aprobó tres años en la Facultad de Economía de la Universidad Central de Venezuela.
Ingresó a la Juventud de Acción Democrática-AD en noviembre de 1952. Se incorporó, en esa misma fecha, al aparato clandestino de AD a causa de la dictadura de Marcos Pérez Jiménez, por lo que incluso llegó a formar parte del Comité Ejecutivo Clandestino. Fue militante fundador del Frente Universitario, que trabajó conjuntamente con la Junta Patriótica. Ambas organizaciones lideraron la huelga del 23 de enero de 1958, la cual culminó con el derrocamiento de la dictadura. Dirigió el movimiento estudiantil, que se legalizó y se convirtió en la Federación de Centros Universitarios, donde fue presidente entre 1958 y 1960, años en los que además fue miembro del Buró Juvenil Nacional de AD. Fue expulsado de dicha asociación partidista en 1960 por haber cofundado, en abril de ese año, del Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria-MIR.
En el MIR se dedicó a la organización de la lucha armada y en 1964 fue enviado a Cuba como representante ante el gobierno cubano de este nuevo movimiento político venezolano. En 1967 fue integrante del Comando del MIR, que realizó la operación conocida como Invasión de Machurucuto junto con oficiales del Ejército cubano. También participó en los Frentes Guerrilleros “Ezequiel Zamora” y “Antonio José de Sucre”. En 1969 se acogió a la Política de Pacificación gubernamental y renunció a la lucha armada.
Fue electo diputado al Congreso Nacional consecutivamente en las elecciones parlamentarias de 1973, 1978 y 1983. En el Parlamento venezolano fue presidente de la Comisión de Turismo que elaboró la Ley vigente y fue miembro de la Comisión de Finanzas.
En el ámbito internacional formó parte del equipo organizador de la Primera Conferencia Intercontinental de Europa, Asia y América Latina, en la cual fue elegido como integrante del Comité Tricontinental Permanente y ejerció la presidencia del Comité de Solidaridad con el Pueblo de Vietnam.
Actualmente es parlamentario jubilado de la Asamblea Nacional, como también ha sido parte del Directorio de Corpoturismo y ha continuado en la directiva del Instituto de Previsión Social del Parlamento venezolano-IPSP.
Publicó el poemario Piara (Dirección de Cultura, Universidad de Los Andes, 1971) y el libro La Invasión de Cuba a Venezuela (Editorial El Nacional, 2007). Ha escrito artículos de opinión política en los diarios El Nuevo País, El Nacional, Últimas Noticias y, en la actualidad, Tal Cual.
Jener Roa-Neira (Culqui, Perú. 1996) es aeronáutico, bombero, escritor y poeta. Fue becado por la Fundación Faucett, en el 2014; y obtuvo la beca Corpac en 2019. Ha dictado conferencias en la Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos sobre poesía y literatura. Conformó las antologías Poemas de abril (Gaviota azul, 2016) y Corazón de poeta (2017) de la Asociación de Poetas, y Pluma y trazo (Editorial América, 2020). Publicó su primer libro de poesía titulado Fuego de amor (Ed. Cielos, 2018) y su segundo libro No extravíes la primavera (LP5 Editora, 2020, Chile). Acaba de publicar Poesía perfecta (Ed. América, 2022, Lima).
Jèssica Pujol Duran (Barcelona, 1982) is a poet, translator, and researcher, currently working as Assistant Professor at the University of Santiago de Chile. She writes and translates in Catalan, English and Spanish, and edits the magazine Alba Londres. She has three chapbooks in English, Now Worry (Department, 2012), Every Bit of Light (Oystercatcher Press, 2012) and Mare (Carnaval Press, 2018); two books in Catalan, El país pintat (Pont del petroli, 2015) and ninó, (Pont del petroli, 2019), and two in Spanish, Entrar es tan difícil salir (Veer Books, 2016), with translations by William Rowe, and El campo envolvente (LP5 Editora, 2021).
Jessica Sequeira has published A Luminous History of the Palm, A Furious Oyster, Rhombus and Oval and Other Paradises: Poetic Approaches to Thinking in a Technological Age, along with many translations.
Joaquín Gavilano is a Bolivian translator and poet. He is the recipient of a 2023 PEN/Heim Translation Fund Grant, as well as the Carolyn F. Walton Cole First-Year Fellowship in translation from the University of Arkansas, where he is an MFA candidate in Creative Writing and Translation. Some of his hobbies include etymology, esports, photography, linguistics, and string instruments.
Jose Hernandez Diaz holds degrees in English and Creative Writing from the University of California, Berkeley, and Antioch University Los Angeles. He is a 2017 NEA Poetry Fellow. He is the author of The Fire Eater (Texas Review Press, 2020) and Bad Mexican, Bad American (Acre Books, 2024). His work appears in The American Poetry Review, Cincinnati Review, Huizache, Iowa Review, Poetry, The Southern Review, The Yale Review, and in The Best American Nonrequired Reading. He teaches creative writing for various organizations including Beyond Baroque, Litro Magazine, The Writer’s Center in D.C., and elsewhere.
Leonora Simonovis is the author of Study of the Raft, winner of the 2021 Colorado Prize for Poetry and Honorable Mention recipient for the International Latino Book Awards. Her work has appeared in Gargoyle, Kweli Journal, Diode Poetry Journal, Tinderbox Poetry Journal, and The Rumpus, among others. Her poems have also been featured in Verse Daily, Sims Library of Poetry, and CIACLA (Contemporary Irish Center, Los Angeles). A Venezuelan-American poet, Leonora grew up in Caracas, Venezuela and currently lives in San Diego, California, where she teaches Latin American literature and creative writing in Spanish at the University of San Diego.
Leonora Simonovis es la autora de Study of the Raft, obra ganadora del Premio anual de Poesía de Colorado (2021) y recipiente de una Mención Honorable en el Concurso Internacional de Libros Latinos (2022). Su obra poética ha sido publicada en revistas como Gargoyle, Kweli Journal, Diode Poetry Journal, Tinderbox Poetry Journal, y The Rumpus. Algunos de sus poemas también han sido destacados en Verse Daily, Sims Library of Poetry y CIACLA (Los Angeles). Nacida en Venezuela y actualmente radicada en San Diego, California, Leonora es profesora de literatura latinoamericana y escritura creativa en español en la universidad de San Diego.
Mariel Norris (she/her) is a Boston-based writer. Her essays, poems, and stories can be found in Current Affairs, Scarlet Leaf Review, Treehouse Arts, Zetetic Record, and Waif, among other publications, and she is featured in the Spanish documentary about Federico García Lorca: Lunas de Nueva York. Mariel won the Academy of American Poets Prize upon earning her Bachelor of Arts degree in Written Arts and Spanish at Bard College, and she holds a Master’s in Education from Fitchburg State University. When not writing, she can be found doodling, attempting to meditate, or trying to keep her houseplants from dying. Her work is archived at marielnorris.com.
Mateo Perez Lara is a queer, non-binary, Latine poet from California. They received their M.F.A. in Poetry from Randolph College’s Creative Writing Program. They are an editor for Block Chronicles. They have a chapbook, Glitter Gods, published with Thirty West Publishing House. Their poems have been published in EOAGH, The Maine Review, PANK, and elsewhere.
Matthew Wimberley is the author of Daniel Boone’s Window (LSU, 2021) and All the Great Territories (SIU, 2020), winner of the Crab Orchard First Book in Poetry Prize and the Weatherford Award from the Appalachian Studies Association. A recipient of a grant from the North Carolina Arts Council, Wimberley’s work has appeared in: The Adroit, Blackbird, Poem-A-Day, Orion, The Threepenny Review, and elsewhere. In 2014 he received his MFA in poetry from New York University, where he worked as a Starworks Fellow at St. Mary’s Hospital for Children in Queens. Currently, Wimberley lives and works in the Blue Ridge Mountains of his childhood.
Meera Parasuraman is a poet, editor, translator, scholar, and mother. Her work has appeared in New Note Poetry and Miracle Monocle.
Michael Salcman, poet, physician, and art historian, was chairman of neurosurgery at the University of Maryland and president of the Contemporary Museum. His poems have appeared in Arts & Letters, Barrow Street, The Café Review, Hopkins Review, The Hudson Review, New Letters, and Poet Lore. His books include The Clock Made of Confetti, The Enemy of Good is Better, Poetry in Medicine, his popular anthology of classic and contemporary poems on doctors, patients, illness and healing, A Prague Spring, Before & After, winner of the 2015 Sinclair Poetry Prize, and Shades and Graces, inaugural winner of The Daniel Hoffman Legacy Book Prize (Spuyten Duyvil, 2020). Necessary Speech: New & Selected Poems was published by Spuyten Duyvil in 2022.
Michelle Zamanian is a writer and poet living in Minneapolis, Minnesota. She edits a series called We Are More at The Rumpus, which publishes Southwest Asian and North African (SWANA) and SWANA diaspora writers.
Mohja Kahf is the author of a novel and three books of poetry; the latest, My Lover Feeds Me Grapefruit, came out in a Covid year. Some of her writing is available in Arabic, Turkish, Japanese, Italian, German, and French translations. She is a founding member of the Radius of Arab American Writers and winner of a Pushcart Prize. Kahf has been a professor of comparative literature and Middle Eastern studies at the University of Arkansas since 1995.
Octavian Paler (1926 - 2007) was a renowned Romanian writer, journalist, and politician in communist Romania and became an important civil society activist after the 1989 Revolution. After growing up in a small village in Transylvania, he attended Spiru Haret high school in Romania’s capital and graduated from the University of Bucharest with a degree in Law and Philosophy. Early in his career, he acted as vice president of the Romanian Radio and Broadcasting committee and was later made president of the Romanian Journalists’ Council. Originally a member of the Communist Party, he soon split with them due to his criticism of the regime, which led to persecution by the Secret Police and the suppression of his artistic work. Following the 1989 Romanian Revolution, he founded the pro-democracy Group for Social Dialogue along with other prominent intellectuals Ana Blandiana and Gabriel Liiceanu. Paler also served as editor of the prominent newspapers “România Libera,” “Ziua,” and “Cotidianul.” He authored at least 20 books. In a 2006 Romania Television survey, Paler was voted one of the 100 greatest Romanians of all time.
Pamela Tighe Ross (Valparaíso, Chile, 1983). Médico Veterinario por la Universidad de Chile, poeta y gestora cultural. Ha cursado diversos talleres de escritura creativa y poesía con los poetas Francisco Martinovich, Nelson Zúñiga y Rafael Rubio. El 2014 cofundó el colectivo artístico y editorial Sociedad FollaG, cuyo objetivo era difundir textos de autores emergentes nacionales e internacionales y en la que se desempeñó como editora de poesía. Desde el año 2020 hasta mayo del 2022 fue parte del equipo de trabajo de Ediciones Liz. El año 2021 publicó la antología Teresa Wilms Montt, dos veces transgredir, que forma parte de la Colección Desenterradas de Ediciones Liz. Formó parte del Laboratorio de escritura de las Américas 2022 de la Fundación Pablo Neruda, a cargo del poeta Tamym Maulén. Actualmente trabaja en diversos proyectos de fomento cultural y está ad portas de publicar su primer poemario.
Richard Lyons is Professor Emeritus at Mississippi State University, now living just outside Memphis, Tennessee. Over his career, he has published in journals like Poetry, The Nation, and The New Republic. He has published four books of poems, the most recent Un Poco Loco (Iris Books, 2016). He has published two chapbooks, the most recent Heart House (Emrys Press, 2019). A third chapbook called Sleep on Needles is forthcoming from Finishing Line Press in 2023.
Rocío Ágreda Piérola (Cochabamba, 1981) studied philosophy and literature. Her work has appeared in anthologies in Peru and Chile, and she has collaborated with the Bolivian publishing projects Género aburrido and Lenguanegra. In 2017 she published the poetry collection Detritus (Maki_Naria), and is currently working on a manuscript called Quetiapina 400mg.
Shalini Rana is a poet from Virginia and an MFA candidate in poetry at the University of Arkansas Program in Creative Writing and Translation. In 2021 she was awarded the James T. Whitehead Award for Poetry, judged by Kayleb Rae Candrilli. Her poems appear or are forthcoming in Salt Hill, Pile Press, Rappahannock Review, wildness, Line Rider Press, Feels Blind Literary, and Anti-Heroin Chic. Find her at shalinirana.com.
Ștefan Manasia is a Romanian poet and journalist, editor of Tribuna Cultural Magazine. He founded Thoreau’s Nephew Reading Club in Cluj in 2008, alongside Szántai János and François Bréda, which became the largest Romanian-Hungarian literary community in Transylvania. He published six volumes of poetry and has had his poems translated into Hungarian, French, German, Polish and Modern Hebrew. He is the author of a collection of essays and literary chronicles called The Aroma Stabilizer and a short story collection, The Chronovisor.
Sy Brand is a queer non-binary Scottish poet. They write through the haze of cat-/child-induced sleep deprivation to make sense of gender, relationships, and ADHD. Their debut chapbook, Cloud Picker, is upcoming in 2023 with Thirty West Publishing. Find them at sybrand.ink and on Twitter.
Valentina Deneken Uribe es una poeta oculta. Nacida en Santiago de Chile el año 1992, desde muy pequeña se acercó a los libros, donde su género favorito fue la poesía. Al sacarse el disfraz de periodista del área financiera, vuelve a las letras y le da forma a sus pensamientos cotidianos a través del lenguaje. Ha publicado en las dos versiones de la antología Arde Chile y es co - coordinadora del colectivo poético Versopolis.
Vasantha Sambamurti is a poet, translator, and prose writer. They are an MFA candidate at the University of Arkansas’ Program in Creative Writing and Translation. She studied Urdu and Hindi on a Critical Language Scholarship, and is a current Sturgis International Fellow based in La Réunion to research Indian Ocean writers. She is the senior editor for Transition Magazine, founded in Uganda in 1961 by Rajat Neogy, now based at Harvard University’s Hutchins Center for African and African American Research. A Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee, her work appears in Northwest Review, Portland Review, Waxwing, Exchanges: A Journal of Literary Translation, the minnesota review, Cream City Review and elsewhere.
Vicho Morán Poetise patiperra, ñusto ultísimo de los Andes, Calameña, Atacameño y Altiplánique hasta el tuétano. Desde chico escribe. Ha participado en varios talleres y grupos literarios impartidos por diversos poetas chilenos, tales como: Taller 112 impartidos por Francisco Martinovich, Taller Poesía y Exilio por Patricio Contreras Navarrete, Taller Fundamentos de la Educación Poética por Alejandra del Río Lohan, y Laboratorio de Escritura de las Américas 2022. Poética de la Devastación. Fundación Pablo Neruda por Tamym Maulén. A la vez es científico explorando la interacción entre terapias de mente y cuerpo y los procesos inflamatorios. Actualmente reside en los Estados Imperiales junto a su media naranja gringo, Matthew Cherry, específicamente en el estado de Rhode Island, por lo que se auto-considera un poetise Rhodaleño, mas no Yanqui. También, es activista marica de género desbordantemente fluido. No gaypitalist, sino Maricueca, Colipata, Soapiza, travestituta, maléficamente anárquica y de Perogrullo muy muy irreverente.
Yuan Changming is the editor of poetrypacific.blogspot.ca. His credits include twelve Pushcart nominations and fifteen chapbooks (most recently Sinosaur), as well as appearances in Best of the Best Canadian Poetry (2008-17), BestNewPoemsOnline and Poetry Daily, among others across forty-eight countries. Yuan served on the jury and was nominated for Canada’s National Magazine Awards (poetry category).