Alexis Almeida grew up in Chicago. She is the author of I Have Never Been Able to Sing (Ugly Ducking Presse, 2018), and most recently the translator Dalia Rosetti’s Dreams and Nightmares (Les Figues, 2019) and Marina Yuszczuk’s Single Mother (Spork, 2019). Her poems, essays, and translations have appeared or are forthcoming in BOMB, The Brooklyn Rail, Folder, The Poetry Project Newsletter, Tripwire and elsewhere. She currently teaches at the Bard Microcollege at the Brooklyn Public Library and runs 18 Owls Press.

Rebekah Smith is a translator, writer, scholar, bookmaker, and editor at Ugly Duckling Presse.

Victoria Cóccaro is a poet and essayist from Buenos Aires. She is the author of the poetry chapbooks El plan (Colección Chapita) and Hotel (Colección Chapita, Gigante). Her current research and writing covers contemporary literature in Argentina and Brazil.

Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz (1651–1695) was Colonial Mexico’s foremost intellectual. The self-taught illegitimate child of a Spanish captain and a Mexican criollo woman, she was raised in an hacienda in Amecameca, on the outskirts of Mexico City. As a teen, she was sent to the viceregal court in the city, where she became lady-in-waiting and a protégé of the Vicereine Leonor Carreto. Having chosen to continue to pursue knowledge over marriage, she entered the monastery of the Hieronymite nuns in 1669, where she remained cloistered until her death and wrote many of her most significant works, including the long poem “First Dream” and “Response of the Poet to the Very Eminent Sor Filotea de la Cruz,” an epistolary defense of a woman’s right to devote herself to scholarly pursuits. Her Baroque, proto-feminist writing—avidly displaying an acute understanding of the intricacies of power relations between the sexes and the Old and New Worlds—coincided with the Spanish Golden Age and garnered her a sizable readership in Spain and the Americas. Sor Juana was ultimately silenced by ecclesiastical authorities, yet her prodigious intelligence continues to incite minds.

John Pluecker is a writer, interpreter, translator and co-founder of the language justice and literary experimentation collaborative Antena. His work is informed by experimental poetics, radical aesthetics and cross-border cultural production. His texts have appeared in journals in the U.S. and Mexico, including The Volta, Mandorla, Aufgabe, eleven eleven, Third Text, Animal Shelter, HTMLGiant, and Fence. He has translated numerous books from the Spanish, including Tijuana Dreaming: Life and Art at the Global Border (Duke University Press) and Feminism: Transmissiones and Retransmissions (Palgrave Macmillan). His most recent chapbooks are Killing Current (Mouthfeel Press) and Ioyaiene (Handmade for Fresh Arts Houston-based Community Supported Art Program). His book of poetry and image, Ford Over, was recently released.

Trace Peterson is a trans woman poet critic. She is the author of two books of poetry, including Since I Moved In (new & revised) (Chax Press, 2019). She is also Founding Editor / Publisher of EOAGH which has won 2 Lambda Literary Awards, including the first Lammy in Transgender Poetry. She co-edited the anthology Troubling the Line: Trans and Genderqueer Poetry and Poetics (Nightboat Books), and also co-edited Arrive on Wave: Collected Poems of Gil Ott (Chax Press). Her work has recently appeared in Readings in Contemporary Poetry: An Anthology (Dia Art Foundation/Yale University Press), From Our Hearts to Yours: New Narrative as Contemporary Practice (ON Contemporary Practice), Best American Experimental Writing 2016 (Wesleyan University Press), TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly, and at the Academy of American Poets (poets.org). She recently taught Transgender Cultural Production at Yale University and was Guest Faculty at the Naropa Summer Writing Program. She currently teaches at Hunter College, where she has taught an innovative course in Trans and Nonbinary Poetry since 2015.

Brenda Coultas is the author of The Tatters, a collection of poetry, published by Wesleyan University Press. Her other books include The Marvelous Bones of Time (2008) and A Handmade Museum (2003) from Coffee House Press. This past November, Coultas was the featured blogger for Harriet at the Poetry Foundation.