Brenda Navarro was part of the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa in 2023. Her first novel Casas vacías (Empty Houses, London, Daunt Books, 2018) won the Tigre Juan Award and the Pen Translation Award. Her second novel, Ceniza en la boca (Ashes in the Mouth) (2022) won the Cálamo Award, El Premio de la Asociación de Librerías de Madrid, the Todos tus libros Award and the San Clemente Award as best book of the year 2022, as well as being a finalist in the Vargas Llosa Biennial 2022.

She has been an editor, scriptwriter, and she teaches creative writing workshops. Navarro has collaborated with media outlets such as El País, Pikara Magazine, La Marea, El Salto, Milenio, Tierra Adentro, and more.

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Clara Obligado was born in Buenos Aires. A political exile from the military dictatorship, she has lived in Spain since 1976. She has a degree in Literature, and she has directed the first Creative Writing workshops organized in Spain, an activity she has carried out for numerous universities and various institutions and which she carries out independently. In 1996, she received the Femenino Lumen prize for her novel La hija de Marx (The Daughter of Marx) and in 2015 the Juan March Cencillo short novel prize for Petrarca para viajeros (Petrarch for Travelers). She has published several works with Páginas de Espuma, including the anthologies Por favor (Please), sea breve 1 and 2 (Be Brief 1 and 2), which are landmark works in the implementation of flash fiction in Spain. She has also published volumes of short stories, including Las otras vidas (The Other Lives), El libro de los viajes equivocados (The Book of Wrong Trips, which earned the 9th Premio Setenil for the Best Book of Short Stories of 2012), La muerte juega a los dados (The Woman Plays Dice) and La biblioteca de agua (The Water Library). Obligado has numerous books of essays including, among others, Una casa lejos de casa. La escritura extranjera (A Home Away From Home. Foreign Writing) and, most recently, Todo lo que crece. Naturaleza y escritura (Everything That Grows. Nature and Writing), also published by Páginas de Espuma. She is also a contributor in journalistic publications, and her work has been translated into several languages.

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I am the mother of Alejandra and Reina Lucia. At the University of Connecticut, I research Latin American and Caribbean poetry about the city/space that has been written in authoritarian regimes and colonial circumstances. I have published three poetry collections: Días de pelea (Days of Struggle) (2023), Bienvenido a Facebook (Welcome to Facebook) (2022), Las tierras rojas (The Red Lands) (2019), Todas las diosas fatigadas (All the Fatigued Goddesses) (2011), and Suelen ser frágiles las muchachas sobre el puente (Girls on the Bridge Tend to be Fragile) (2005). I have seasonal diaries at suelenserfragiles.com. I am the co-founder of Justicia11J.

Karina Sainz Borgo was born in Caracas in 1982, when everything was about to go up in flames. She works as a journalist specializing in cultural issues at Vozpopuli.com, Zenda and Onda Cero, although she writes all the time. She has published several journalistic books, including Caracas Hip-Hop (Caracas, 2007) and Tráfico y Guaire. El País y sus Intelectuales (Traffic and the Guaire. The Country and its Intellectuals) (Caracas, 2007), and maintains the blog Crónicas Barbitúricas (Barbiturate Chronicles). Her short story "Tijeras" (“Scissors”) was published by the prestigious magazine Granta and in 2021 was selected by Chimamanda Gnozi Adichie for the anthology The Best Short Stories 2021: The O. Henry Prize Winners. Her first novel, La hija de la española (It Would Be Night in Caracas, New York, HarperVia, 2019) received critical and reader acclaim, won the Grand Prix de l'Héroïne Madame Figaro and the International Literary Prize, was a finalist for the Kulturhuset Stadsteatern Stockholm, and was nominated for the LiBeraturpreis. Considered one of the best books of the year by NPR and Time, it is being translated into twenty-six languages and has sold film rights. In 2019, Karina Sainz Borgo was chosen as one of the one hundred most creative people by Forbes magazine. El Tercer País (The Third Country, New York, HarperVia, 2024) is her latest novel.

“Karina Sainz Borgo has the gift of storytelling in her veins.” – Jorge Franco

^{(Photo: Jeosm)} 

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Meruane’s fiction includes the short story collection Las Infantas (The Princesses), as well as five novels–Póstuma (Posthumous), Cercada (Corral), Fruta podrida (Rotten Fruit), Sangre en el ojo (Seeing Red, USA, Deep Vellum, 2016) and Sistema nervioso (Nervous System, USA, Graywolf, 2021)–translated into twelve languages. Meruane’s nonfiction books include the essays Viajes virales (Viral Travel) and Zona ciega (Blind Spot), the personal essay Palestina en pedazos (Palestine in Pieces), an expanded version of her earlier essay, Volverse Palestina (Becoming Palestine), the lyrical essay Palestina por ejemplo (Palestine for Example), and the diatribe Contra los hijos (Against the Kids), meanwhile, is a collection of Meruane’s shortest essays. Meruane has ventured into playwriting with a theatrical adaptation, "Un lugar donde caerse muerta" (“A place to drop dead”), and one dramatic work: "Esa cosa animal" (“That animal thing”). She has received the Blue Metropolis Prize (Canada 2023), the Cálamo Award (Spain 2016), the Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz Award (Mexico 2012), and the Anna Seghers Prize (Berlin 2011), as well as writing grants from the Guggenheim Foundation (USA 2004), the NEA (USA 2010), the DAAD (Germany 2017) and la Casa Cien Años de Soledad (Mexico 2021), among others. She teaches creative writing at New York University (USA).

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Luis Muñoz was born in Granada in 1966. He graduated from the University of Granada with degrees in Hispanic Philology and Romance Philology, and he holds a PhD in Spanish Literature. In his hometown, he directed the University of Granada’s Aula de Literatura (1992-2000), as well as the poetry magazine Hélice (Helix) from its founding until its closure (1992-2002). Between 2001 and 2012, he worked in Madrid as an advisor to the Residencia de Estudiantes.

In 1994, he edited the anthology El lugar de la poesía (The Place of Poetry) and has translated, among other titles, El cuaderno del viejo (The Notebook of the Old Man) by Giuseppe Ungaretti (Pre-Textos, 2000). In 2008, he curated the exhibition "Gallo. Interior de una revista" ("Gallo. Interior of a Magazine") about the publication directed in 1928 by Federico García Lorca.

The collection Limpiar pescado. Poesía reunida 1991-2005 (Cleaning Fish. Collected Poems, 1991-2005) contains Muñoz’s poetic work until 2005. He has published the books Septiembre (September), Manzanas amarillas (Yellow Apples), El apetito (The Appetite), Correspondencias (Correspondences), Querido silencio (Dear Silence) and Vecindad (Neighborhood). He has received, among others, awards from the Ciudad de Córdoba, Generación del 27 and Ojo Crítico. Since 2012, Muñoz has been a professor at the University of Iowa, USA. He lives between Iowa City and Madrid.

_{(Photo: Nicolás Giussani)}

Pilar Quintana is the author of five novels and a book of short stories. La perra (The Bitch, New York, World Editions, 2020), which has been translated into more than twenty languages, was on the long list for the Dublin Literary Award, was a finalist for the Premio Nacional de Novela and the National Book Award, and won the Premio Biblioteca de Narrativa Colombiana, an English PEN Translates Award, and the LiBeraturpreis. With her book Los abismos (Abyss, New York, World Editions, 2023), translated into multiple languages, she won the Alfaguara Novel Prize in 2021 and was a finalist for the National Book Award. She is the editor of the Biblioteca de Escritoras Colombianas (The Library of Colombian Female Writers), a publishing project of the Ministry of Culture to rescue and promote women's literature.

^{(Photo: Carlos Zárrate)}
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