Jorge Ortega

Mexican poet and essayist. PhD in Hispanic philology from the Autonomous University of Barcelona, where he obtained the grade of Outstanding cum laude with a thesis on surrealist poetry in Latin America. Since 1992 he has published more than fifteen poetry titles in Mexico, Argentina, Spain, the United States, Canada and Italy, among which are Ajedrez de polvo (2003), Estado del tiempo (2005), Devoción por la piedra (2011, 2016), Guía de forasteros (2014) and Hotel del Universo (2023). His poetic work has been translated into English, Mandarin, German, Portuguese, French and Italian, and has been included in multiple compilations of contemporary Mexican poetry. He has also collaborated with poems, reviews and critical texts on poetry in various magazines in Latin America, such as Buenos Aires Poetry, Letras Libres, Periódico de Poesía, Quimera and Revista de Occidente, as well as in others of the Anglo-Saxon world: Bulletin of Hispanic Studies, World Literature Today, Poetry International and International Poetry Review. Also, he has participated in literature congresses and poetry festivals in various cities in America, Europe and Asia, and he has worked as a visiting professor at different universities in California. In 2000 and 2002 he was a fellow in the poetry specialty of the Young Creators program of the National Fund for Culture and the Arts, a call and institution in which he was a poetry tutor during the period 2018-2019. He coordinated the nineteenth and twentieth-century literature volume of the series El patrimonio histórico y cultural de México (1810-2010) printed in 2013 for the Mexican Library collection of the Ministry of Culture. His book Dévotion pour la pierre was published in Quebec in 2018 at the house Les Éditions de La Grenouillère in the French version by Françoise Roy. His bilingual Spanish-Italian poetry anthology Luce sotto le pietre, which the Edizoni Fili d Aquilone label prepared from his work, appeared in 2020 in Rome, Italy, translated by Alessio Brandolini. Among other recognitions, he has won the Baja California State Literature Awards, the Tijuana National Poetry Award, the Jaime Sabines International Poetry Award and the Gilberto Owen National Literature Award. He is currently part of the National System of Art Creators of Mexico.

Other activities involving the participant:

Poetry Room
Poetry Room

Liliana Blum

She loves to adopt dogs from the street, feed pigeons, watch horror movies, and combine coffee with cookies, pastries or cake. She was born in Durango, in 1974, and although almost no one knows her city, she really likes it. As a narrator she has published the novels El extraño caso de Lenny Goleman (Young Planet, 2022), Cara de liebre (Seix Barral, 2020), El monstruo pentápodo (Bordes, 2019; Tusquets, 2017), Pandora (MaxiTusquets, 2020; Tusquets, 2015) and the books of short stories Un descuido cósmico (Tusquets, 2023), Todas hemos perdido algo (Tusquets, 2020), Tristeza de los cítricos (Páginas de Espuma, 2019), No me pases de largo (Literal Publishing, 2013), Residuos de espanto (Ficticia Editorial, 2012), Yo sé cuándo expira la leche (Instituto Municipal de Cultura de Durango, 2011), The curse of Eve and other stories (Host Publications, 2008), Vidas de catálogo (Fondo Editorial Tierra Adentro, 2007), ¿En qué se nos fue la mañana? (Instituto Tamaulipeco para la Cultura y las Artes, 2005) y La maldición de Eva (Ediciones de Barlovento, 2003). She studied comparative literature at The University of Kansas, and has a master's degree in education with a specialty in humanities from the Institute of Technology and Superior Studies of Monterrey. 

Other activities involving the participant:

The Pleasure of Reading Gala
Literature between dogs and cats

Minerva Reynosa

She is a poet and cultural manager. She has published the poetry books: Emötoma, La íntima de las cosas, Atardecer en los suburbios, Photograms of My Conceptual Heart, Absolutely Blind, translated by Stalina Villarreal, Mammut & Jinba-Ittai; Larga oda a la salvación de Osvaldo in co-authorship with Sergio Ernesto Ríos, iremos que te pienso entre las filas y el olfato pobre de un paisaje con borrachos o ahorcados, and Lo mejor que damos. Antología personal. She won the Regional Prize of Noreste Carmen Alardín 2006 and the National Prize of Poetry Clemencia Isaura 2020. 
She is currently collaborating with Benjamín Moreno in the textual, visual and technological experimentation project Benerva. She is an online teacher, manager of various poetry awareness projects and belongs to the National System of Art Creators.

Other activities involving the participant:

Poetry Room

Elma Correa

She's a storyteller. She coordinates an international writers' meeting in Baja California and manages @habitaciones_propias, a virtual community where the women of the world share the spaces where they create. She has a degree in Spanish language and literature , a master in sociocultural studies and doctor in society, space and power. She teaches at the Faculties of Arts, Pedagogy and Human Sciences of the Autonomous University of Baja California (UABC) and teaches creative writing workshops. She has been a fellow of the Stimulus Program for Artistic Creation and Development of Baja California (PECDABC) and the National Fund for Culture and the Arts (FONCA). Her texts have been published in national and international journals, and have been included in various anthologies. She compiled Vacunas contra la poesía (SCBC, 2020), the Mexican section of Frontera Norte. Antología de narrativa chilena y mexican (Cinosargo, 2020), Ni una sola palabra (UANL, 2021) y Mexicanas 2 (Fondo Blanco, 2022). She wrote Que parezca un accidente (Nitro/Press, 2018), Mentiras que no te conté (UDG, 2021) with which she received the XX Juan José Arreola National Short Story Award; Llorar de fiesta (BUAP, 2022), Lo simple (INBAL, 2023) San Luis Potosí Amparo Dávila Fine Arts Short Story Award 2022, and La novia del león (Nitro/Press, 2024). 

Other activities involving the participant:

The Pleasure of Reading Gala
Annual International Storytellers Conference
Literature between dogs and cats