Denise Phé-Funchal

(Guatemala, 1977) 

Escritora y socióloga. Ha publicado Las flores (novela, 2007), Manual del Mundo Paraíso (poesía, 2010), Buenas costumbres (cuento, 2011) Ana sonríe (novela, 2015), La habitación de la memoria (novela, 2015), Sala de estar (cuento, 2017), Nunca más el fuego - Dicen (dramaturgia, 2019),  Polvo… (cuento, 2024). 
Sus cuentos, poemas y ensayos han sido publicados en antologías en Guatemala, Argentina, Italia, Bolivia, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Estados Unidos, México, España y Alemania.
Su escritura está íntimamente ligada a su trabajo como socióloga, campo en el que ha realizado investigación sobre la guerra civil guatemalteca, la memoria histórica y las violencias contra las mujeres. 
Posee una maestría en educación superior, y un máster en estudios avanzados en literatura española e hispanoamericana.
 

Other activities involving the participant:

Naming Central America because Central America counts

Mónica Lavín

Mónica Lavín es autora de libros de cuentos, novela y ensayo. Ha sido Premio Nacional de Literatura Gilberto Owen por el libro de cuentos Ruby Tuesday no ha muerto, Premio Narrativa de Colima por su novela Café cortado, Premio Iberoamericano de Novela Elena Poniatowska por Yo, la peor, sobre Sor Juana y su tiempo. Sus publicaciones más recientes son: la antología de cuentos ¿A qué volver? (Tusquets, 2018), las novelas Todo sobre nosotras (Planeta, 2019) y Últimos días de mis padres (Planeta, 2022). Escribió el libreto para una ópera sobre Sor Juana: La sed de los cometas, que se estrenó en septiembre de 2022. Es columnista en la sección cultural de El Universal, profesora e investigadora en la Academia de Creación Literaria de la Universidad Autónoma de la Ciudad de México, maestra universitaria distinguida por la Universidad de Colima y miembro del Sistema Nacional de Creadores. 

Fanuel Hanán Díaz

Soy licenciado en letras por la Universidad Católica Andrés Bello, y especialista en comunicación social. Coordiné el Departamento de Selección de Libros para Niños y Jóvenes del Banco del Libro de Venezuela, y edité la revista Parapara. 
He dictado conferencias y talleres en diferentes países latinoamericanos y en universidades de América Latina, Europa y Asia. Soy autor de libros y artículos teóricos sobre un abanico amplio de temas en literatura infantil y juvenil, con un enfoque en el ámbito latinoamericano. Además, he escrito libros para niños, especialmente en el área de no ficción, algunos de los cuales han quedado seleccionado en la lista White Ravens, en la lista de Honor de la IBBY, en el Premio Los Mejores del Banco del Libro y en el Premio Cuatrogatos. Co mi libro, No, tú, no, gané el Premio Tatoulou en Francia. 
Recibí la beca de la Internationale Jugendbibliothek en Alemania para desarrollar investigaciones sobre libros antiguos para niños; con el apoyo de la Embajada de Francia realicé una investigación sobre la obra de Julio Verne, y con el apoyo de la Embajada de Canadá publiqué un panorama de la literatura infantil canadiense contemporánea. He sido jurado de distintos premios internacionales como el Hans Christian Andersen, el Bologna Raggazi, el Catálogo Iberoamericano de Ilustración y la Bienal de Ilustración de Bratislava.  He sido profesor del máster gretel de literatura infantil y de la especialización de literatura infantil de la Pontificia Universidad Javeriana. 
Actualmente soy editor externo de Editorial Norma de Colombia, y soy coordinador académico del diplomado de literatura Infantil de la Universidad Metropolitana en Venezuela. Desarrollo propuestas de investigación como Independent scholar y coordino proyectos educativos en formatos multimedia para distintas instituciones. Soy miembro correspondiente de la Academia Venezolana de la Lengua.

Other activities involving the participant:

Keynote Conference: "Mediating with the shadows in children's literature: books that disturb"

Felipe Restrepo Pombo

Writer, editor and journalist. He has written six books that have been published in different languages. In 2017, he was selected as one of the best writers under 40 in Latin America. In 2021, he received the Premio Nacional de Periodismo Simón Bolívar in Colombia. He is the coordinator of the Premio Anagrama de Crónica and editor of the Crónica collection. He has worked with dozens of international media outlets. He has taught writing workshops in the United States, Spain, Mexico and Latin America. He is an occasional columnist for El País and Letras Libres. He was the editor of the Gatopardo magazine for six years.

Other activities involving the participant:

Meetings (and misunderstandings). En otro país
Naming Central America because Central America counts

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:

Literature with eggs and machaca
Literature between dogs and cats

Najat El Hachmi

Invitado de Honor

Najat El Hachmi was born in Nador (Morocco) in 1979 and moved to Spain when she was eight years old. She has a degree in Arab Studies from the University of Barcelona.
Among her published works, one should mention her novels L’últim patriarca (Planeta, 2008), a debut that won the Ramon Llull Prize and the Prix Ulysse, La filla estrangera (Edicions 62- Destino, 2015 – winner of the Sant Joan Novel Award and the Barcelona City Award) and Mare de llet i de mel, (Edicions 62, 2018). All of them have been widely translated.
After the publication on the celebrated Feminist essay, Sempre han parlat per nosaltres (Edicions 62-Destino, 2019), her latest published work is the novel Dilluns ens estimaran (Edicions 62, Destino, 2021) that received the prestigious Nadal Novel Award 2021.

Other activities involving the participant:

One-way trip from nowhere

Manel Loureiro

(Spain, 1975) 

He is a writer, lawyer and television host who has also worked as a screenwriter on numerous projects. He currently collaborates as an article writer in different national print media, in addition to acting as a host on Television of Galicia (TVG) and as a commentator on Radio Nacional de España.

His first novel, Apocalypse Z:. The Beginning of the End, started as an Internet blog that he wrote in his spare time. The blog became a viral phenomenon with more than one and a half million readers online and the novel was published in 2007, becoming a bestseller. His following works, Dark Days, The Wrath of the Just , The Last Passenger, Only She Sees, Veinte, La puerta and La ladrona de huesos have been bestsellers, both in Spain and in many other countries around the world. Manel Loureiro is one of the few contemporary Spanish authors who has managed to place his books on the list of the best sellers in the United States. His novel, La ladrona de huesos, with more than 250 thousand readers, has consolidated him as a reference author in the Spanish and international literary scene. 
Manel Loureiro gives a definitive turn to the thriller with his new novel, Cuando la tormenta pase, winner of the Fernando Lara Award 2024.
Currently, several of his novels are in the process of adaptation to the big screen or pending release. Manel continues to live in Galicia, preparing new stories.

Other activities involving the participant:

Making a living from writing: Different ways to become a professional writer

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:

Literature with eggs and machaca
Annual International Storytellers Conference
Literature between dogs and cats

Gabi Martínez

Invitado de Honor

She is a writer. His work, translated in 10 countries and adapted to various narrative formats, has received numerous awards and acknowledgements, especially his non-fiction books, In the land of giants, Un cambio de verdad, En la Barrera, Naturalmente urbano, Lagarta and the novels Sudd, Voy and Las defensas. Delta was chosen the best book of 2023 by the literary magazine WMagazín.

Protagonist of the episode Colombian massif in the documentary series Finding Encanto, awarded a Dolphin at the Cannes Festival.

He is the director of the Liternatura Festival, a founding member of the Caravana Negra and Lagarta Fernández associations, of the Urban and Territorial Ecology Foundation, and co-director of the project “Invisible Animals”.

Other activities involving the participant:

Rain without ice, please: the world is thirsty
Written with ink and chlorophyll

Magela Baudoin

Es escritora, periodista y editora boliviana-venezolana. Autora del libro de entrevistas Mujeres de costado (2010); de la novela El sonido de la H, Premio Nacional de Novela 2014 (Bolivia); y de los libros de cuentos La composición de la sal, Premio Hispanoamericano de Cuento Gabriel García Márquez (2015), y Vendrá la muerte y tendrá tus ojos, finalista del VI Premio Ribera del Duero-Páginas de Espuma en España (2020). Solo vuelo en tu caída (nouvelle), ilustrada por la artista Alejandra Alarcón, fue publicada en Argentina en 2023. Es directora y coautora del libreto de la ópera de cámara Matilde en las ojeras de la noche (2023). Su obra ha sido traducida al inglés, portugués y árabe. Recibió el Premio Anna Seghers 2021. Dirige junto con Giovanna Rivero y Ximena Santaolalla la Editorial Mantis (Bolivia), especializada en publicar la obra de escritoras hispanoamericanas. 

Other activities involving the participant:

Latin America Viva

Chiki Fabregat

Invitado de Honor

is the daughter of a children's story writer and grew up listening to stories in which she and her siblings were the protagonists. She has a degree in Hispanic Philology from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid and coordinates the Children's and Young Adult Literature department at the Escuela de Escritores. She teaches in-person courses and specialized subjects in the Master's program in Fiction and the Specialization Course in Teaching Creative Writing. She balances her work at the Escuela de Escritores with writing, promoting reading among children and adolescents, and training teachers.

She has published the Zoila collection of young adult fantasy literature with Edebé, and the novel Cuando la luna llora, which was a finalist for the XXVII Edebé Prize. With Diquesí, she published the children's novel Trece días para arreglar a papá, and with DNX, El año de la guarida. She is the co-author of the books Cuentos para educar II, Cuentos para prevenir, Cuentos para coeducar, Cuentos para fomentar la autoestima, and Cuentos sobre el ocio activo from the Spanish Confederation of Associations of Parents and Mothers of Students (CEAPA), as well as the Los superhéroes collection under the collective pseudonym Isaura Lee. In 2021, she won the Premio SM Gran Angular with El cofre de na

Other activities involving the participant:

Teaching writing in Spain and America
One Thousand Young People with Care Santos

Vivian Lavín

(Santiago de Chile, 1967) is a journalist, writer, literary agent, and editor with over 20 years of experience in the cultural field.

In 2001, she launched the project Vuelan las plumas, the oldest literary program in Chilean broadcasting, which is also shared across a network of associated media outlets.

She has written three books of interviews with prominent Chilean and Latin American artists, intellectuals, and scientists. She is the author of Pisaremos las calles nuevamente (Editorial Cuatro Lunas, 2023).

She was a member of the jury for the Premio Iberoamericano de Narrativa Manuel Rojas 2016. She is a member of the Public Libraries Recommendation Committee of Chile and the Book and Reading Observatory.

She has been recognized by prestigious institutions such as the Society of Chilean Writers (2005), the Chilean Book Chamber (2009), and the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Chile (2010). She has also received the Premio a la Excelencia Periodística Pobre el que no cambia de mirada (2009) and the Alejandro Silva de la Fuente Award from the Chilean Academy of Language (2017).

Other activities involving the participant:

Latin America Viva
International Compostela Award for Illustrated Albums