About the Authors
Vanessa Caraveo is a bestselling and award-winning bilingual author, published poet, and artist who has been avidly involved in writing throughout the years. Her work brings focus to many social issues that exist in today’s world and has been published in Literature Today Journal, Poetrybay, The Chachalaca Review, Voices de la Luna Literature and Arts Magazine, The Raven Review and for various anthologies in which she aspires to make a positive difference by uplifting the lives of others through her literary work.
Xánath Caraza is a traveler, educator, poet, short story writer, and translator. She writes for La Bloga, The Smithsonian Latino Center, Revista Literaria Monolito, and Seattle Escribe. In 2019 for the International Latino Book Awards she received Second Place for Hudson for “Best Book of Poetry in Spanish” and Second Place for Metztli for Best Short Story Collection. In 2018 for the International Latino Book Awards she received First Place for Lágrima roja for “Best Book of Poetry in Spanish by One Author” and First Place for Sin preámbulos / Without Preamble for “Best Book of Bilingual Poetry”. Her book of poetry Syllables of Wind / Sílabas de viento received the 2015 International Book Award for Poetry. She was Writer-in-Residence at Westchester Community College, NY, 2016-2019. Caraza was the recipient of the 2014 Beca Nebrija para Creadores, Universidad de Alcalá de Henares in Spain. She was named number one of the 2013 Top Ten Latino Authors by LatinoStories.com. Her books of verse Where the Light is Violet, Black Ink, Ocelocíhuatl, Conjuro and her book of short fiction What the Tide Brings have won national and international recognition. Her other books of poetry are It Pierces the Skin, Balamkú, Fără preambul, Μαύρη μελάνη, Le sillabe del vento, Noche de colibríes, and Corazón pintado. Caraza has been translated into English, Italian, Romanian, and Greek; and partially translated into Nahuatl, Portuguese, Hindi, and Turkish.
Robin Carstensen's poetry manuscript, In the Temple of Shining Mercy received the annual first-place award by Iron Horse Literary Press in 2016. Her poems are recently forthcoming or published in Queer in the New Century, from Jacar Press: A Community-Active Literary Press; Odes and Elegies: Eco-Poetry from the Texas Gulf Coast, Lamar University Press; Voices de La Luna; Good Cop/Bad Cop: An Anthology. FlowerSong Press, and many more. She directs the creative writing program at TAMU-CC where she is faculty advisor for Windward Review: Literary Journal of the South Texas Coastal Bend, and co-founding, senior editor for Switchgrass Review: Literary Journal of Health and Transformation.
Mayte Castro is a writer and educator who resides in Seattle, WA. She is from Southern California (daughter of Mexican parents); Mayte teaches youth and young adults ages 16-21 at an Open Doors program. Poetry Mayte writes focuses on immigration, culture and travel, and self-expression as a road to healing generational traumas. See more of her work on Instagram: writingandtea.
Julie Corrales is a first-generation Chicana, an autodidactic chola, political activist, teen-mother, hoochie, feminist, survivor, actively engaged in her own decolonization. Mexica by blood, American by her parents’ sweat and tears, she draws on her experiences to advocate for and write about Chicanx issues. As a youth, julie wrote many melodramatic rhyming love poems, many of which are still in circulation among California inmates. Since then, her essays have been published in the San Diego Union Tribune and La Prensa San Diego, and her poetry has been published in Acentos Review and Azahares Literary Magazine. She performs spoken word at various venues in San Diego.
PW Covington writes in the beat tradition of the North American highway. He has shared his work from San Francisco's Beat Museum to Havana, Cuba and from the Standing Rock Reservation to the Mexican border. Covington has deployed as a relief worker to natural and man-made disasters from Somalia to Gulf and East Coast hurricane zones over the last several decades. He lives in Albuquerque, NM, two blocks north of Historic Route 66.
German Dario resides in Tempe, Arizona with his wife, two sons, two dogs, a guinea pig and sometimes a fish. Recently published in San Pedro River Review, Good Works Review, Into The Void, The Friday Influence, Right Hand Pointing, The New Verse News, The Acentos Review, and The American Journal of Poetry.
Susan Deer Cloud, a Catskill Indian, is an alumna of Goddard College (MFA) and Binghamton University (B.A. and M.A.) where she sometimes taught Creative Writing in between holding out her begging bowl. After decades of living away, in April 2013 she returned to her “heart country” mountains to dwell once more with foxes, deer, black bears, coyotes, rainbow trout, bald eagles, and the ghosts of panthers and ancestors. She is the recipient of various awards and fellowships, including an Elizabeth George Foundation Grant, a National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellowship, and two New York State Foundation for the Arts Fellowships. Her most recent books are The Way to Rainbow Mountain, Before Language and Hunger Moon (Shabda Press); her poems, stories and essays have been published in anthologies and journals too numerous to name. Deer Cloud has spent the past two years roving with her wanderlust companion in South America, including Antarctica. After being diagnosed with breast cancer in May 2017, more than ever she is immersed in a physical journey mated to a spirit quest for whatever original stardust-light draws us to each other in the most creative, tender, and enraptured ways.
Cesar L. De Leon is a poet-organizer for Poets Against Walls. His work has appeared in Queen Mob's Tea House, Pilgrimage, The Acentos Review, La Bloga, Public Pool, and the anthologies Pulse/Pulso: In Remembrance of Orlando, Imaniman: Poets Writing in the Anzaldúan Borderlands and Texas Weather among others. An active participant in the local literary scene, he lives and works in the Rio Grande Valley of Tejas.
Veronica Eldredge is a Swedish-American visual artist, cultural worker, caregiver, poet and documentary filmmaker. A member of the Irish diaspora, her love of the arts and storytelling was cultivated at a young age. She was born and raised in Thámien, which is the Muwekma place name of San José, California: land of apricot orchards and microchip factories. Today she is privileged to have her work featured on book covers, appearing in Salinas at the National Steinbeck Center, in San José with the All Womxns Showcase, 3F Gallery, and in Silicon Valley De-Bug Magazine, various zines, as well as conferences in the U.S., Europe, and Mexico. She is a 2016 graduate of the Humanities, Visual Arts, and Women and Gender Studies at Seattle University, and has been a regular collaborator of creatives in California as well as Seattle. Currently, she is illustrating children’s books, including the forthcoming ¡Iván y van! A Bilingual Adventure and Anaranjado y Rojo: Un Poema Ilustrado/Orange and Red: An Illustrated Poem. Connect with Veronica on Instagram @vmearte and @macantafilms or at vmearte@gmail.com.
Beatriz F. Fernandez is a Miami area poet and university Reference Librarian. She grew up in Puerto Rico, the daughter of a Peruvian mother and Puerto Rican father. She is the author of The Ocean Between Us (Backbone Press, 2017) and Shining from a Different Firmament (Finishing Line Press, 2015) which she presented at the Miami Book Fair International. She’s read her poetry on WLRN, South Florida’s NPR news station and is a former grand prize winner of the Writer’s Digest Poetry Award.
Her poems have appeared in the Copperfield Review, Falling Star Magazine, Label Me Latina/o, Thirty West Publishing House, and Whale Road Review, among others. Twitter: @nebula61.
Odilia Galván Rodríguez – poet, writer, editor, publisher, and social justice activist, is the author of six volumes of poetry, her latest The Color of Light, FlowerSong Books 2019. She is a long-time community organizer and volunteer. She has worked as the editor for Matrix Women's News Magazine, Community Mural's Magazine, Tricontinental Magazine in Havana, Cuba, and currently edits two journals Cloud Women’s Quarterly and Anacua Literary Arts. Galván Rodríguez facilitates creative writing workshops and offers readings from her books nationally. She is one of the founders of the Facebook page Poets Responding, and co-author of the groundbreaking and award-winning anthology Poetry of Resistance: Voices for Social Justice, University of Arizona Press. Her poetry and writings have appeared in numerous anthologies, and literary journals on and offline. She is a practitioner of Indigenous Spiritual and Healing Traditions and strives to live a simple life based on the indigenous worldview she inherited from her ancestors.
Robert René Galván, born in San Antonio, resides in New York City where he works as a professional musician and poet. His last collection of poems is entitled, *Meteors*, published by Lux Nova Press. He is a Shortlist Winner Nominee in the 2018 Adelaide Literary Award for Best Poem. His work has been nominated for Best of Web 2020 and for the Pushcart Prize for 2020. His forthcoming books of poetry are *Undesirable: Race and Remembrance*, Somos en Escrito Foundation Press, *The Shadow of Time, *Adelaide Books and *Standing Stones*, Finishing Line Press.
Rodney Gómez was born and raised in Brownsville, Texas. He serves as the 2020-2021 McAllen, Texas Poet Laureate. His poetry collections include Arsenal with Praise Song (Orison Books, 2021), Geographic Tongue (Pleiades Press, 2020), winner of the Pleiades Press Visual Poetry Series, Ceremony of Sand (YesYes Books, 2019), and Citizens of the Mausoleum (Sundress Publications, 2018). His work appears in Poetry, New England Review, The Gettysburg Review, North American Review, Verse Daily, and other journals. His chapbook Mouth Filled Night won the Drinking Gourd Prize from Northwestern University’s Poetry and Poetics Colloquium. In 2020 he was awarded an Academy of American Poets Poet Laureate Fellowship.
Gabriel González Núñez was born in Montevideo, Uruguay, and is currently a translation professor at UTRGV. He has published poetry, children’s books, and short stories, mostly in Spanish. As a poet, he has authored a collection titled Ese golpe de luz (FlowerSong Press 2020) and a digital, bilingual chapbook titled El ciclo / The Cycle (2020), made possible through a grant of the Center for Latter-day Saint Arts. His poem “Un dios en quien confiar” was included as part of a literary recital titled Thorns & Thistles (2019). As a children’s author, he has published six books (and counting) in a collection titled Me llamo… (Penguin Random House Uruguay 2019, 2020). As a short story writer, he has authored several stories, which have been published in print and online magazines. He was awarded the 2012 Platero Award by the UN Spanish Book Club for his short story “El viaje que no se dio.” Other short stories have been finalists or received honorable mentions in different contests.
Lara Gularte’s book of poetry, Kissing the Bee, was published by “The Bitter Oleander Press,” in 2018, and she was nominated by “Bitter Oleander Press” to Best New Poets. Published in national and international journals and anthologies, her poetry depicting her Azorean heritage is included in the The Gávea-Brown Book of Portuguese-American Poetry, and in Writers of the Portuguese Diaspora in the United States and Canada. In 2017 Gularte traveled to Cuba with a delegation of American poets and presented her poetry at the Festival Internacional de Poesia de la Habana. She’s a proud member of the esteemed, “Escritores Del Nuevo Sol,” and “Círculo de poetas & writers.” Gularte is a poetry instructor for the California Arts-in-Corrections program at Folsom, and Mule Creek prisons.
Andrea Hernández Holm is a poet, essayist, and scholar rooted in the U.S. – Mexico Borderlands. She is a writing specialist and adjunct professor at the University of Arizona. Her research and writing focus on the ways that identities intersect with writing, particularly among women in the Borderlands. Andrea is a former member of the moderating panel for Poets Responding to SB 1070 and her work appears in the award-winning Poetry of Resistance: Voices for Social Justice. You can learn more about Andrea at https://ahholm.wixsite.com/andreahernandezholm
Nancy Hom is an artist, writer, curator, and arts consultant. Born in Toisan, China and raised in New York City, she has been an influential leader in the SF Bay Area art scene since 1974. Over the years, she has created many iconic images for community cultural events as well as political and social causes. Through her posters, poetry, illustrations, installations, and curatorial work, Nancy has used the arts to affirm the histories, struggles, and contributions of communities of color. Since 2012, her large floor mandalas have evolved from personal expressions to educational stories and spiritual contemplations that involve direct community input. As a vehicle for healing, they offer reflections on change, interdependence, and common purpose. Her written works can be found in Namjai, Cheers to Muses: Contemporary Works by Asian American Women, Blue Arc West, So Luminous the Wildflowers: An Anthology of California Poets, Asian Americans: The Movement and The Moment, and Mixed Blessings: New Art in a Multicultural America.
Heidi Juel is a graduate of the University of Minnesota and also has an MA in English from the University of Texas at Austin. She has presented her poetry at regional conferences and enjoys the many opportunities for open-mic readings in Austin. Most recently, two of her poems were published in Boundless: The Rio Grande Valley International Poetry Festival Anthology 2020. She is currently a Professor of English at Austin Community College where she teaches courses in Magical Realism and the literature of indigenous peoples in North America. Writing is her passion, second only to inspiring students to value the power of words as an expression of self, and an outlet in times of need.
Rollin Jewett is an award-winning playwright, screenwriter, singer/songwriter, poet, author and photographer. His screenwriting credits include “Laws of Deception” and “American Vampire”. His short stories, poetry and photography have been published in numerous literary magazines and anthologies and his plays have been produced all over the world.
Ramon Jimenez is an educator and writer from Seattle, Washington. Originally from Los Angeles, Ramon works as a high school social studies and language arts teacher. Along with teaching, he runs a writing program for youth called, “The Boot,” where young people can develop their voices through poetry, spoken word, rap, and storytelling. Ramon enjoys writing poetry and short stories that focus on immigrant communities, geopolitics, culture, and travel. Ramon’s poems are featured in Rigorous Magazine and The Anti-Languorous Project."
Genevieve Lim Genny has performed in collaborations with jazz legends Max Roach, Herbie Lewis and Fred Ho, as well as local Bay Area musicians, John Santos, Anthony Brown, Francis Wong and Jon Jang. She has been a featured poet at World Poetry Festivals in Venezuela, Sarajevo and Naples, Italy. Her award-winning play "Paper Angels," aired on PBS American Playhouse in 1985 and was reprised in 2010 in San Francisco Chinatown’s Portsmouth Square, receiving the San Francisco Fringe Festival Best Site Specific Award. She is author of three poetry collections, Winter Place, Child of War, Paper Gods and Rebels, From Both Shores, an anthology of Japanese and Chinese women's family memoirs and co-author of Island:Poetry and History of Chinese Immigrants on Angel Island, which received the American Book Award.
Richard Loya has been honing his photography skills since the mid-’70s. He was primarily a film photographer until his Canon AE-1 broke down, and repair would have been too expensive. Loya then switched to digital format. A huge difference, before, he would have to wait for his film to be processed to see the results of his settings. Now, it is instant, and he makes adjustments on the fly. In the last few years, Richard has concentrated primarily on nature photography. His love of nature photography has to do in part with living in the Lower Rio Grande. There are many different types of birds living there or that migrate to that part of the country. He is retired and lives in the Valley, and he will continue to chase birds and nature for a while.
John C. Mannone has poems appearing in North Dakota Quarterly, Le Menteur, Blue Fifth Review, Poetry South, Baltimore Review, 2020 Antarctic Poetry Exhibition, and Foreign Literary Journal, as well as Spanish and English poems in Azahares Literary Magazine, Sin Fronteras, 2016 Texas Poetry Calendar (Dos Gatos Press), Acentos Review, Trickster Journal, Hinchas de Poesia, Liebamour Magazine, and others. He’s a Jean Ritchie Fellowship winner in Appalachian literature (2017) and served as the celebrity judge for the National Federation of State Poetry Societies (2018). His poetry won the Impressions of Appalachia Creative Arts Contest (2020), his fiction won the Carol Oen Memorial Fiction Award (2020), and his nonfiction won the Joy Margrave Award (2015, 2017). His latest poetry collection, Flux Lines: The Intersection of Science, Love, and Poetry, is forthcoming from Linnet’s Wings Press (2021). He edits poetry for Abyss & Apex and other journals. John is a retired physics professor living between Knoxville and Chattanooga, Tennessee. Find him at The Art of Poetry [http://jcmannone.wordpress.com] or on social media [https://www.facebook.com/jcmannone].
Carolyn Martin From associate professor of English to management trainer to retiree, Carolyn Martin is a lover of gardening and snorkeling, feral cats and backyard birds, writing and photography. Her poems have appeared in more than 125 journals throughout North America, Australia, and the UK. Her first chapbook, Nothing More to Lose was released by The Poetry Box in 2020, and her fifth poetry collection, The Catalog of Small Contentments will appear in 2021. She is the poetry editor of Kosmos Quarterly: journal for global transformation. Find out more at www.carolynmartinpoet.com.
Tureeda Mikell is a Bay Area Writing Project Teacher Consultant, Story Medicine Woman, published poet and writer, Qigong Healer, storyteller, lyricist, astrologer and performance artist. She has published over 70 CA Poets in the Schools student anthologies since 1989, and performs storytelling in schools, libraries, and universities, and at public and private events including the National Association of Black Storytellers, Lawrence Hall and Golden Gate Academy of Sciences, Museum of the African Diaspora, and Randall and Oakland Museums. Her book Synchronicity: Oracles of Story Medicine was released in February 2020.
Luis A. Moreno Vega
Adela Najarro Adela Najarro is the author of three poetry collections: Split Geography, Twice Told Over and My Childrens, a chapbook that includes teaching resources. With My Childrens she hopes to bring poetry into the classroom so that students can explore creative writing, identity, and what it means to be Latinx in US society. Every spring semester, she teaches a “Poetry for the People,” workshop at Cabrillo College where students explore personal voice and social justice through poetry and spoken word. More information about Adela can be found at her website: www.adelanajarro.com.
Hadi Panahi is a PhD student of psychology, living in Tehran, Iran. He writes poetry, in particular short poems.
Juan Manuel Pérez, a Mexican-American poet of indigenous descent and a Poet Laureate for Corpus Christi, Texas (2019-2020), is the author of several books of poetry including, SCREW THE WALL! AND OTHER BROWN PEOPLE POEMS (FlowerSong Books, 2020). The award-winning poet, history teacher, and Pushcart Nominee, is also a member of the Horror Writers Association, the Science Fiction Poetry Association, and the Military Writers Society of America. Juan worships his Creator and chases chupacabras in the South Texas Coastal Bend Area.
Norma Beatriz Sánchez, poeta mexicana. Miembro del grupo literario Escritores del Nuevo Sol. Sus poemas se han publicado en las antologías Voces y Cuentos del Nuevo Sol, The Border Crossed Us, Poesía en Vuelo, Soñadores, Mujeres de Maíz Zine y St. Sucia, y la revista en línea, La Palabra.
Raul Sanchez. Raúl’s inaugural collection "All Our Brown-Skinned Angels" was nominated for the 2013 Washington State Book Award in Poetry. He translated in Spanish the continuation of John Burgess’ "Punk Poems" included in the 2011 edition of "Graffito" by Ravenna Press. A 2014 Jack Straw Writers Alumni, as well as one of the mentors and judges for the 2014 Poetry on Buses Project. He participated in the TEDx Salon event in Yakima WA, October 24th 2014. Currently a Poetry Mentor for the PONGO Teen Writing Project in the Juvenile Detention Center and a member of Seattle Arts and Lectures Writers In The Schools (WITS), program. He was nominated as the Inaugural Poet in Residence for the City of Burien 2018-2019. One his student’s poems was selected by Claudia Castro Luna for the Poem In Your Pocket 2019 and another of his students opened for Valeria Luiselli’s reading with his poem “Dibujar” on April 17, 2019. On March 9th, 2019 he taught a workshop along with Jed Meyers titled “Mixing Poetry and Politics” at Egress Studio, Bellingham WA.
Michael Shen was born in China, but has lived in this country for 68 of his 72 years. He has worked as a psychologist, a carpenter, and, for over 30 years, as a civil rights/employment rights lawyer. He has served as president and or Board member of the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, the Anti‑Discrimination Center, the National Employment Law Project, and the New York Civil Liberties Union. He is now retired, and recently began writing poetry. His main interests are societal injustices, health, psychology, spirituality, and wondering what it’s all about.
Tezozomoc is a Los Angeles Chicano Poet and 2009 Oscar Nominated Activist and has been published in the following journals: The Silver Stork, silverstorkmagazine.weebly.com/, 2018. Campanella, Nick. “The 2018 Winter Issue of Come and Go Literary Is Finally Here.” Come and Go Literary, 15 Dec. 2018. The Coiled Serpent: Poets Arising from the Cultural Quakes and Shifts of Los Angeles Paperback (ISBN: 9781882688524, Northwestern University Press, 2016), Men’s Heartbreak Anthology (Karineh Mahdessian, 2014). Tezozomoc has an academic chapter in Mexican-Origin Foods, Foodways, and Social Movements: The Blue Nib, Magazine.thebluenib.com/article/poetry-by-tezozomoc-jude-alexzander-leanne-neill-and-ankush-banerjee-2/. Published 7/9/2018, A Decolonial Reader Edited by Devon G. Peña, Luz Calvo, Pancho McFarland, and Gabriel R. Valle ISBN: 978-1-68226-036-4, “Chapter 11 Fragmentary Food Flows: Autonomy in the “Un-signified” Food Deserts of the Real”. Winner, 2018 ASFS (Association for the Study of Food and Society) Book Award, Edited Volume. Tezozomoc has published essays in Urban Future Manifestos produced by the MAK Center (2010, ISBN 978-3-7757-2731-0). Tezozomoc’s work also includes academic essays on Nahuatl indigenous languages please see the following: http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~jar/TIL_7.html which was published as chapter in Teaching Indigenous Languages, 1997.
Kimberly Vargas Agnese. A Native American poet residing in Fresno, CA, Kimberly Vargas Agnese frequently writes social justice poetry addressing a variety of themes. Her work appears, or is slated to appear in, Shift, Snapdragon and Seventh Wave Magazine, amongst others. To read more of her work, please visit www.bucketsonabarefootbeach.com.
Edward Vidaurre is the author of seven collections of poetry. Pandemia and Other Poems, his most recent from Aztlan Libre Press, 2020. He is the 2018-2019 City of McAllen, TX Poet Laureate, The Director of Operations of the Rio Grande Valley International Poetry Festival, a five-time Pushcart Prize-nominated poet and publisher of FlowerSong Press and its sister imprint Juventud Press. Vidaurre is from Boyle Heights, CA and now resides in McAllen, TX with his wife and daughter.
Javier Villarreal recibió su licenciatura y maestría en español de la Universidad Pan American en Edinburg, Texas, y un doctorado en Lingüística Hispánica de la Universidad de Texas en Austin, Texas. Su obra ha aparecido en antologías, revistas académicas y de creación literaria: entre ellas, la Antología Corpus Christi Writers (2018, 2019); The Call of the Chupacabra Eds. Juan Manuel Pérez y Dr. Malia A. Pérez (2018). The Windward Review (2018). Tradujo al inglés Versos para no dormir de Leticia Sandoval (2015), Editó el poemario Voz de Amor de Servando Cárdenas (2016). Además, cuenta con Entre lluvia, canto y flor poemario primero y Luminaria su siguiente proyecto de poesía. Desde el 2015 es miembro activo de la mesa directiva que organiza People’s Poetry Festival en la ciudad de Corpus Christi, Texas. Ejerció la docencia por 25 años en la Universidad de Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, ciudad donde reside en estos días.
George Wallace is writer in residence at the Walt Whitman Birthplace in New York, writing professor at Pace University in Manhattan, and winner of the Orpheus Prize (BG), Naim Frasheri Prize (MK), CSAO Award (IT), and Alexander Gold Medal in Greece. Suffolk County Long Island’s first poet laureate, he is editor of Poetrybay, co-editor of Great Weather for Media in New York City, and author of 35 chapbooks of poetry, including A SIMPLE BLUES WITH A FEW INTANGIBLES, chosen as a Top Ten summer poetry reading choice by the Huffington Post in 2017.
Wyatt Welch grew up on the Interstates after being kidnapped by his father. Watching the boundaries of Self and the State has been the work of their recent poetry, alongside other poetic concerns such as living gay-trans in the United States. Their recent work has been published in Aired, deLuge Literary and Arts Journal, the Metric, Mantra Review, the Ocotillo Review, Persephone's Daughters, and the Tucson Weekly. Wyatt earned their MA in Linguistics and African Languages at the University of Florida. Currently, Wyatt lives in Tucson, Arizona, where they teach at the University of Arizona and preach revolutionary, feminist Witchcraft at Dry River Witches' Collective.
Lynn White lives in north Wales. Her work is influenced by issues of social justice and events, places and people she has known or imagined. She is especially interested in exploring the boundaries of dream, fantasy and reality and writes hoping to find an audience for her musings. She was shortlisted in the Theatre Cloud 'War Poetry for Today' competition and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and a Rhysling Award. Her poetry has appeared in many publications including: Apogee, Firewords, Peach Velvet, Light Journal and So It Goes. Find Lynn at: https://lynnwhitepoetry.blogspot.com and https://www.facebook.com/Lynn-White-Poetry-1603675983213077/