Irma Pineda is among the most prominent Indigenous-language poets of the Americas, as well as a leading activist on human rights issues. She is the author of ten bilingual Didxazá-Spanish books of poetry, three books of poetry in Spanish, and three trilingual books in Wendy Call’s English translation. Her poems are widely anthologized and have also been translated into Estonian, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, and Serbian. She writes a biweekly newsmagazine column for national Mexican newspaper La Jornada and was the first woman to serve as president of Mexico’s National Organization of Writers in Indigenous Languages (ELIAC). From 2020 through 2022 Pineda served as one of two representatives of Latin America’s Indigenous peoples at the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues and she is currently a legislator in the Oaxacan State Congress. A long-time professor at the National Teachers University in Ixtepec, Oaxaca, Pineda is also a member of Mexico’s National Academy for Artists and Creators (SNCA). She lives in her hometown of Juchitán, Oaxaca.

Wendy Call is the author, co-editor, or translator of eight books. She co-edited the craft anthology Telling True Stories: A Nonfiction Writers’ Guide and the annual Best Literary Translations, published by Deep Vellum each spring. Her creative nonfiction book No Word for Welcome: The Mexican Village Faces the Global Economy and her co-translation of Mikeas Sánchez’s trilingual book How to Be a Good Savage and Other Poems both won Gold Medals from the International Latino Book Awards. Together with Irma Pineda, she received the 2022 John Frederick Nims Prize in Translation from the Poetry Foundation. A recent Translator in Residence at the University of Iowa and Fulbright Core (Faculty) Scholar to Colombia, she teaches nonfiction in the Rainier Writing Workshop MFA. She lives on Duwamish land, in Seattle, and on Zapotec and Mixtec land, in Oaxaca.

Fernando Olivera was born in the city of Oaxaca in 1962. He studied art at the Escuela de Bellas Artes at the Benito Juarez University in Oaxaca. He went on to study lithography with Japanese print-maker Shinzaburo Takeda at the Taller de Artes Rufino Tamayo. In addition to five solo shows in Mexico, Olivera participated in group shows in Mexico City, El Salvador, Montana, San Francisco, Palo Alto, Chicago and Philadelphia. He illustrated the award-winning children's book, The Woman Who Outshone the Sun, based on a Mixtec folk tale, published by Children's Book Press. Olivera's work was included in the 1994 show "Myth & Magic: Oaxaca Past and Present" organized by the Palo Alto Cultural Center. His work was also included in, The Tree is Older than You Are, a 1995 collection of Mexican poems and stories published by Simon and Schuster. Olivera's vision is grounded in the traditional life of Oaxaca and the myths and legends of its people. But his work also reflects his social and political concerns. Much of his work is preoccupied with the Zapatista uprising in Chiapas and the conflicts in Oaxaca. Fernando Olivera passed away on June 5th, 2018.