Yolanda Castaño is a Galician poet, essayist, editor and cultural curator. Winner of Spain’s 2023 National Poetry Award, she has published eight poetry books, among them Materia [Matter] (Xerais, 2022) and A Segunda Lingua [Second Tongue] (PEN Club Galicia, 2014). Her work, translated into nearly three dozen languages, has reached audiences across four continents. Castaño lives and directs a writers’ residency in A Coruña, Galicia.

Samantha Schnee is the founding editor of Words Without Borders. Her translation of The Goddesses of Water, a collection by Mexican poet Jeannette Clariond, was published by Shearsman Books in the UK (August 2021) and World Poetry Books (September 2022) in the US. Her translation of Carmen Boullosa’s penultimate novel, The Book of Anna, was published by Coffee House Press last year, and her translation of Boullosa’s Texas: The Great Theft was shortlisted for the PEN America Translation Prize. She is a trustee of English PEN, where she chaired the Writers in Translation committee from 2014–17, and she currently serves as secretary of the American Literary Translators Association. Born in Glasgow, Scotland, she lives in Houston, Texas.

Pepe Baena Nieto is a painter from Spain, celebrated for his landscapes and still lifes that honor the essence of Andalusian life. His work captures what Gustave Courbet called “living art,” translating the customs, ideas, and spirit of his time with honesty and restraint. Baena’s paintings reveal Cádiz in every brushstroke — light, vitality, and people rendered without idealization but with deep respect and joy. Whether depicting familiar faces or scenes from daily life, he approaches reality with purity and precision, expressing more with less. Through his art, Baena documents the world around him as he sees it: simple, sincere, and beautiful in its essence.