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.

The collective's name is a play on words between Lápiz and Pistola, referring to a graphic weapon. Lapiztola was formed as a collective in 2006, during which time a political uprising took place in the city of Oaxaca, Mexico. This uprising gave rise to a social graphic movement in the city, where locals and outsiders contributed street artwork. They approach their interventions as Urban Graphics, seeking to establish a visual dialogue with society, often using stencils and screen printing as technical supports, attempting to give the image a personal touch to a space.