María Baranda

(México, 1962)

She was born in Mexico City, on April 13, 1962. For years she has dedicated her life to poetry and literature for children and young adults. She has written several books of poetry, and among the prizes she has received are the Aguascalientes National Poetry Prize, the Ramón López Velarde International and the Sabine-Gatien La Pointe in Canada. Her books have been published in Belgium, Canada, the United States, China, Italy and England, and her poems have been translated into various languages. Yale University published her Selected poetry, and her book Teoría de las niñas was translated into Italian. Some of the topics across her work dedicated to childhood are the difficulties that children must overcome to live in a better world, the social conditions they face in their lives and the differences that distinguish them as individuals. Her books have received recognitions such as the Honorable Mention of the White Ravens and the Ragazzi Award in Italy, the Barco de Vapor Award in Mexico and the honor List of the International Book on Board for Young People. In 2017 she was the ambassador of the International Children's and Youth Literature Fair of her country. In 2019 she received the SM Ibero-American Prize for Children's and Youth Literature for her career. She is currently the Poetry tutor at the Foundation for Mexican Letters, and coordinator of the Octavio Paz Extraordinary Chair and the poetry collection El Ala del Tigre, of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). Her most recent poetry books are Deslumbrantes campos de hielo, Sombra y materia and Digo aire para volar mis ojos.

Luis Armenta Malpica

(México, 1961)

He is a poet, essayist and director of Mantis Editores. Jalisco Prize in Letters in 2008 and Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz International Literature prize in 2013, among many others; the most current ones are the Carlos Pellicer Ibero-American Fine Arts Poetry Prize for Published Work (2020), Minerva Margarita Villarreal Ibero-American Poetry Prize (2021) and Iguana de Oro by the Huston Chair of Cinema and Literature at the University of Guadalajara (2022). He is a member of the National System of Art Creators. His most recent titles are [Contra] Dicción (UANL, 2022), Esto no es un bestiario (Tedium Vitae, 2023) and Enola Gay (Broken Glass, Spain, 2024, in bilingual edition).

Other activities involving the participant:

Poetry Room

Ana María Hurtado

Nació en Caracas, hija de Francisco y María Andrea.  Es poeta, escritora, ensayista, conferencista, docente, médico psiquiatra y psicoterapeuta, egresada de la Universidad Central de Venezuela (UCV).
En sus tiempos de estudiante universitaria recibió el Premio de narrativa Julio Garmendia (Dirección de Cultura de la UCV, 1984) y aun cuando se inició como cuentista, a partir de entonces se dedicó con pasión y constancia a la poesía. 
Algunos de sus poemas han sido publicados en diversas antologías, entre ellas:
Diario poético de los tiempos adversos, Poesía en voz alta, Una lectura por la vida y por la libertad, Pasajeras. Antología del cautiverio, El vuelo y la claridad, Hacedoras, Mujeres del mundo uníos, El dulce ron que las embraga, Poetas actuales de Canarias y Venezuela y En la desnudez de la luz. 
Es autora de los siguientes poemarios publicados: La fiesta de los náufragos (2015), El beso del arcángel, escrito en coautoría con el poeta colombiano Leonardo Torres (2018), El árbol que en ella muere (2023), La única inocencia (2023) y El Reino (2014).
Ha colaborado en diversas páginas, blogs y revistas literarias, de arte y de psicoanálisis, nacionales e internacionales, donde han sido publicado sus textos y poemas.  Actualmente, es colaboradora habitual de la Revista de la Academia Norteamericana de la Lengua Española (RANLE) y articulista del sitio comunicacional Pasión País, en el área de gestión emocional en tiempos difíciles. Mantiene un programa de entrevistas a poetas, a través de la plataforma Cultura Mundis.
Combina sus actividades literarias con el ejercicio de su profesión, en cuyo desempeño se le hace esencial la utilización de la palabra como vía para el conocimiento del mundo interno y el alivio del sufrimiento humano. Ambas actividades dan sentido y consistencia a su vida.  Cada día ejercita la atención, pues la considera fuente primordial del acontecimiento poético. 

Yolanda Ramírez Michel

Yolanda Ramírez Michel nació el 9 de septiembre de 1965 en Morelia, Michoacán, México. Es poeta, ensayista, narradora, maestra, editora y promotora de lectura. Fue becaria del Consejo Estatal para la Cultura y las Artes de Jalisco en 2011 y 2023. Recibió el doctorado honoris causa en ciencias de la educación por la Universidad Santander (UNISAN) en 2019. Se ha especializado en mitología comparada. Es directora y fundadora de Trithëmius Talleres Literarios. Dirige el canal de divulgación y formación @yolandaramirezmichel Literatura Universal, Cuentos de hadas, Mitología y símbolos en la plataforma YouTube, gratuito y abierto al público en general. Sus obras publicadas son: El gran niño, electrones de un sueño, (El Viaje ediciones 2005/ Progreso 2008); Jacinta, (La Zonámbula 2008); La maestra Milagros (Progreso 2010/ Panamericana 2016); Palingenesia (C&F ediciones 2011); Los mitos del alba, (CECA 2011); Grimori Mundi (Salto Mortal 2013); Litterae (Salto Mortal 2014); Todos somos magos (Edelvives Progreso 2014); El Tarot de don Quijote (Salto Mortal 2016); El oráculo de don Quijote (Salto Mortal 2016); El Manifiesto Luminista (Salto Mortal 2017); Crónica de una reparación vital (Salto Mortal 2018); Numué la dama de los cuentos (Panamericana 2020); Luz en pueblo pequeño (Salto Mortal/Trithemius 2020); El evangelio del universo, Conversaciones entre Lilith y el Ángel (Salto Mortal 2020); El Tarot de don Quijote 78 arcanos (Trithemius 2021); Enuma Elish, el mito (Salto Mortal - H. Ayuntamiento de Guadalajara 2022),  y Revelaciones (Salto Mortal 2023).
 

Ricardo Castillo

Nació en Guadalajara, Jalisco, el 11 de mayo de 1954. Es poeta. Estudió letras en la Universidad de Guadalajara. Es colaborador de Controversia, El Día, Éxodo, La Cultura en México, La Rana Sana, La Semana de Bellas Artes, Nexos, Novedades, Omeyotl, Péñola, Plural, Revista de la Universidad de Guadalajara, Revista Universidad de México, ¡Siempre!, y Vuelta. Becario del Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes/Fondo Nacional para Actividades Sociales (INBA/Fonapas), en poesía, 1979. Premio Nacional de Poesía Carlos Pellicer para Obra Publicada 1980, por El pobrecito señor X y La oruga. Premio de Poesía de la Universidad de Querétaro 1991, por Nicolás el Camaleón.

Dulce Ma. Zúñiga

Doctora en literatura italiana por la Universidad Paul Valéry de Montpellier (Francia). Se ha dedicado al estudio y la docencia de las letras y las lenguas italiana y francesa en la Universidad de Guadalajara.
Ha publicado seis libros de investigación en literatura comparada, entre estos se pueden destacar El tedio, el suicidio y la luna (Instituto de Cultura Culiacán) y La novela infinita de Italo Calvino, (FONCA-Tierra Adentro). Además, es autora de múltiples artículos de crítica literaria.
Es traductora del francés, italiano y portugués. Entre sus libros traducidos se pueden citar: El equipaje del viajero de José Saramago (UNAM, 1993), Juegos de paciencia de Carlo Ginzburg y Adriano Prosperi (CULagos, 2020) Marcovaldo (Siruela, 2015) y Un optimista en América (Siruela, 2021) de Ítalo Calvino. 
Actualmente es directora de la División de Estudios de la Eultura de la Universidad de Guadalajara, Coordinadora Académica de la Cátedra Latinoamericana Julio Cortázar y directora del Premio FIL de Literatura en Lenguas Romances. 
 

Other activities involving the participant:

Tribute to Irma Pineda

Benito Taibo

(México, 1960) es escritor, periodista y entusiasta promotor de la lectura entre los jóvenes. Inició su camino en la literatura como poeta con Siete primeros poemas (1976), Vivos y suicidas (1978), Recetas para el desastre (1987) y De la función social de las gitanas (2002). Ha publicado en Planeta sus novelas Polvo (2010), Persona normal (2011), Querido Escorpión (2013), Desde mi muro (2014), Cómplices (2015), Corazonadas (2016) y la trilogía Mundo sin dioses: Camino a Sognum (2018), La razón y la ira (2019), Caos y destino (2020), Pasar inadvertido (Seix Barral, 2022). Su libro más reciente es Cuatro veranos (Planeta, 2023). Su obra es un referente ineludible en el panorama literario contemporáneo. 

Other activities involving the participant:

Latin America Viva
From the trench to the frying pan
From the trench to the frying pan

Ada Salas

Invitado de Honor

(Cáceres, 1965) studied Hispanic Philology at the Universidad de Extremadura. She has taught courses, workshops, seminars and conferences at centers such as Institutos Cervantes, Fundación Juan March, La Casa Encendida, Fundación Centro de Poesía José Hierro, and at book fairs, including in Guadalajara and Frankfurt.

She has published, among others, the books of poetry: Arte y memoria del inocente (1988, Universidad de Extremadura, Juan Manuel Rozas Award); Variaciones en blanco (1994, Hiperión, Hiperión Award); Esto no es el silencio (2008, Hiperión, Ciudad de Córdoba Award); No duerme el animal (2009, Hiperión), which contained almost all of her work until then; Descendimiento (2018, Pre-Textos) and Arqueologías (2022, Pre-Textos). In collaboration with photographer Tete Alejandre, she published Reflecjos (2006), and with painter Jesús Placencia, Ashes to Ashes (2011, Editora Regional de Extremadura) and Diez Mandamientos (2016, La Oficina de Arte y Ediciones). In 2021, Criba (Pezsilver editions) appeared, bringing together poems with artwork by Laura Lio.

The Escribir y borrar anthology (2016, Fondo de Cultura Económica) includes a selection of her essays, such as: Alguien aquí. Notas acerca de la escritura poética (2005, Hiperión); El margen. El error. La tachadura (De la metáfora y otros asuntos más o menos poéticos) (2011, Diputación de Badajoz, Premio de Ensayo Fernando Pérez) and Lengua del alma (2019, Fundación Juan March).

In 2021, she premiered Descendimiento at the Teatro de la Abadía in Madrid, directed by Carlos Marquerie, with music by Niño de Elche.

In 2019, she received the Medal of Extremadura for her career.

Together with Juan Abeleira, she translated A la misteriosa y Las tinieblas by Robert Desnos (Hiperión).

La sed, Lugar de la derrota and Esto no es el silencio have been translated into Swedish, Descendimiento into German, and Arqueologías into Italian.

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
Literature with eggs and machaca

Tomasz Rózycki

(Poland, 1970) 

Różycki writes poetry and fiction. He has published nine collections of verse (the most recent, Ręka pszczelarza [The Beekeeper’s Hand], appeared in 2022), epic poems and novels. He has won numerous literary prizes in Poland and abroad, including the Václav Burian Award (2017) and the Wisława Szymborska Award (2023). His collection of literary sketches, Błędna kartografia Europy [A False Cartography of Europe], won him the title “Ambassador of the New Europe”. Mira Rosenthal’s English translation of his poetry collection, Kolonie [Colonies], was shortlisted for the Griffin Poetry Prize (2014). In 2023 he received the Grand Continent Prize for his book The Lightbulb Thieves. He is a former resident of the DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Programme. His poetry has been translated into languages including Spanish, French, English, Bulgarian, German, Lithuanian, Russian, Slovenian and Ukrainian, and has appeared in many foreign anthologies and journals.

Other activities involving the participant:

European Literature Festival

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
Literature with eggs and machaca

Manuel Vilas

Invitado de Honor

(Barbastro, 1962) is one of the most important Spanish writers of his generation. He is a poet and narrator. As a poet, he has won the Jaime Gil de Biedma and Generación del 27 awards, among others. Her fiction work began with España, followed by the novels Aire nuestro, El luminoso regalo and the books of short stories Zeta and Setecientos millones de rinocerontes. He is the author of the travel book América, Listen to me and of the novelized biography Lou Reed era español.

His novel Ordesa (2018) became a publishing phenomenon and was translated into over 20 languages and was chosen book of the year by the Babelia supplement of the El País newspaper. It also won the Femina Award, presented in France to the best foreign novel translated into French, garnering thousands of readers worldwide. 

His novel Alegría (2019) was a finalist in the Planeta Prize and has been translated into several languages, including French, German and Italian. In 2021, his novel Los besos was released. In 2022, an important anthology of his poetic work was published under the title Una sola vida.In 2023, he won the prestigious Nadal Award with the novel Nosotros, which is now its fifth edition, with translations into several European and Eastern languages, including Chinese. He collaborates with El País, La Vanguardia, Cadena SER and other media outlets.

Other activities involving the participant:

Do you write too? Family constellations of a trade

Antonio Rivero Taravillo

Invitado de Honor

Writer from Seville born in 1963 in Melilla (Spain). Author of novels whose protagonists include Octavio Paz, W. B. Yeats and James Joyce, he also writes non-fiction, travel books, biographies of Luis Cernuda, Juan Eduardo Cirlot and Álvaro Cunqueiro, and he is a literary critic and translator of many of the most important poets in English, from Shakespeare to Pound, and writers in Irish Gaelic, such as Flann O’Brien, Liam O’Flaherty and Tadhg Mac Dhonnagáin. He has published seventeen books of poems, the most recent of which is Luna sin rostro (Pre-Textos). His poems have been translated into English, French, Italian, Serbian, Portuguese, Chinese and Hungarian.

He has been a bookseller and editor, and has directed magazines such as Mercurio, El Libro Andaluz and Estación Poesía. Today, he regularly collaborates with Diario de Sevilla, Jot Down, Letra Global, Letras Libres and Cuadernos Hispanoamericanos. In Mexico, his texts have appeared in the Laberinto and El Cultural supplements, and in the magazines Inundación Castálida, Luvina and UNAM's Periódico de Poesía.

The awards he has received include the Seville Book Fair, the Rafael Cansinos Assens Award for his translation of John Keats, and the Comillas Award for his biography of Luis Cernuda, which was published in two volumes by Tusquets in Spain and Mexico. He wrote prologues for La realidad y el deseo and Ocnos y Variaciones sobre tema mexicano for Alianza Editorial, and is considered one of the main scholars of the life and work of Cernuda, on whom he has published numerous works.

In 2025, his new translation of Hamlet will be published.

Other activities involving the participant:

Meetings (and misunderstandings). Luis Cernuda y Xavier Villaurrutia

Roque Raquel Salas Rivera

Es un poeta, educador y traductor puertorriqueño de experiencia trans nacido en Mayagüez, Puerto Rico. Cuenta con seis poemarios. Lo terciario / the tertiary (Noemi, 2019), su tercera colección, fue semifinalista para el Premio Nacional del Libro (EU) y ganador del Premio Literario Lambda. Su cuarto poemario, While they sleep (under the bed is another country) (Birds LLC, 2019), inspiró el título de la exhibición No existe un mundo poshuracán, en el Museo Whitney. Su libro más reciente, Antes que isla es volcán/ Before island is volcano (Beacon, 2022), ganó el Premio Juan Felipe Herrera y el Premio Campoy-Ada. Algarabía (GrayWolf, 2025), su séptimo poemario, es una epopeya trans especulativa. Sus demás reconocimientos incluyen el nombramiento como Poeta Laureado de la ciudad de Filadelfia, el Premio Nuevas Voces, el Premio de Traducción Literaria Sundial y el Premio Ambroggio. 

Coeditó las antologías Puerto Rico en mi corazón (Anomalous, 2019) y La piel del arrecife: Antología de poesía trans puertorriqueña (La Impresora, 2023). La traducción de la obra poética de su abuelo, Sotero Rivera Avilés, The Rust of History (Circumference, 2022), fue semifinalista para el Premio Nacional de Traducción de ALTA. Tuvo el honor de traducir el poema de Ada Limón dedicado a la Europa Clipper de la Administración Nacional de Aeronáutica y el Espacio (NASA), que actualmente viaja a una de las lunas de Júpiter. Se siente particularmente orgulloso de su traducción de Animal fiero y tierno / fierce and tender animal (Centro, 2024) de la gran poeta Ángela María Dávila. Gracias a una subvención de la iniciativa Tentacles, está recopilando y traduciendo los escritos y discursos de la activista trans Sylvia Rivera.  
 
Roque Raquel vive en San Juan desde 2020, donde enseña en la Facultad de Estudios Generales de la Universidad de Puerto Rico, y atiende a una gata muy fiera llamada Pietri.

Claudia Luna Fuentes

(México, 1969)

She holds a PhD in sciences and humanities for interdisciplinary development from the Autonomous University of Coahuila; a master's degree in history of contemporary society from the Ibero-American University Extension Saltillo, and a bachelor's degree in communication sciences from the Autonomous University of Coahuila. She has published among others, Los frutos del sol (MacMillan Castle, 2005) a children's book from the collection La Otra Escalera, included in the classroom library for preschool children. Her books of poems include Casa de Sol (FECA-Conaculta, 1995), Ruido de hormigas (Gatsby Ediciones, 2005), Carne para las flores, personal anthology (Aullido Libros, Spain 2011) and Donde la piel (Mantis Editores/Conarte, 2019). She appears among other anthologies, in Anuario de poesía mexicana (Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2006), in Hacia un azul imposible. (CEPE-UNAM/El Tapiz del Unicornio, 2023) and in Semillas de nuestra tierra. Muestra ecopoética mexicana (Grupo de Investigaciones Poéticas de la Madre Tierra and Cactus del viento, 2023). She won the Manuel Acuña Municipal Poetry Prize in 2008. In poetry she received a scholarship from the National Fund for Culture and the Arts (Fonca 2003-2004), stimuli as a young creator and as a creator with a career from the Faculty of Economics, Accounting and Administration (FECA) and the Stimulus Program for Artistic Creation and Development (PECDA) on several occasions. She was a fellow of the Regional Fund for Culture and the Arts (FORCA)-Northeast 2011-2012, in Lima, Peru, where she taught workshops on object poetry. She was the guest of honor of the Tangier International Festival 2013 in Morocco, where her poetry translated into Arabic was read. Some of her work has English, German, Portuguese and French versions. Among the magazines in which she has published, the contemporary poetry magazine of Valencia  21veintiúnversos stands out; and in Lichtungen, in the section Literature of the North of Mexico, her poems were translated by Christoph Janacs. She participated in the exhibition of the Contemporary Photography Program section Coahuila, Tasar el humor (Museo de las Artes Gráficas, 2018). She generated material poems for the Bergman Chair of the UNAM. Her translated poems were printed on the wall at the Cultural Institute of Mexico in Paris, accompanying sculptures by Avelina and Alejandro Fuentes Quezada in the exhibition Continuous Extinction (2021). Environmental photographs and video poems were exhibited at the Mohammed Drissi Gallery, in Tangier (2021). She participated in a literary table and in the Coahuilense visual art exhibition entitled Segar el mar with a visual poem, within the 49th Cervantino Festival (2022). A selection of sound poems worked around the poem “Piedra de Sol”, by Octavio Paz, were left to be heard at the Marie-José Tramini and Octavio Paz Memorial, at the San Ildefonso College, within the Nature and Poetry Festival 2023 organized by the Octavio Paz Extraordinary Chair. Part of her poetry has been translated in 2024 into Polish by the poet and novelist Julia Fiedorczuk. In June 2024 she was invited by the University of Warsaw to share her creative processes. Currently, Dr. Pawel Piszczatowski, from the Center for Environmental Humanities of the Faculty of Modern Languages at the University of Warsaw, works on an article about his acoustic-visual and material work. She works as director of scientific dissemination and projects at the Desert Museum, where she is a founding member.

Other activities involving the participant:

Literature with eggs and machaca
If I were a Neanderthal