Atenea Cruz

(Mexico, 1984)

My first contact with short stories was thanks to my mother: I remember her reading to me Oscar Wilde, Francisco Hinojosa, One Thousand and One Nights. I remember her telling me stories from popular folklore, with that ability to create a character just using the tone of her voice. My grandfather was a natural storyteller, maybe that's why narrating seems to me a primordial form of communication, a manifestation of affection. 
    I grew up with many short stories at hand: cheap editions of the Grimm Brothers, by Andersen; comics of Little Lulu, Archie, Donald Duck. When they were not enough, I moved on to the Public Library. Later I started writing my own stories and went from one literary workshop to another. My desire to continue reading pushed me to leave my city: I studied a Bachelor's degree in Literature in Zacatecas and a Master's Degree in Mexican Literature Studies in Guadalajara, but I always return to my home, Durango, from where I teach online classes, although I prefer face-to-face.
    I have published five books of short stories, three of poetry and a novel (I keep to myself, out of shame, my early writings). I have won scholarships, creation residencies and some awards.  
Literature has given me everything: studies, work, travel, friends, love and even an occasional enemy; in return, I decided to give him my honesty and my life, which are the only things I really own. 

Other activities involving the participant:

Annual International Storytellers Conference

Claudia Luna Fuentes

(México, 1969)

She holds a PhD in sciences and humanities for interdisciplinary development from the Autonomous University of Coahuila; a master's degree in history of contemporary society from the Ibero-American University Extension Saltillo, and a bachelor's degree in communication sciences from the Autonomous University of Coahuila. She has published among others, Los frutos del sol (MacMillan Castle, 2005) a children's book from the collection La Otra Escalera, included in the classroom library for preschool children. Her books of poems include Casa de Sol (FECA-Conaculta, 1995), Ruido de hormigas (Gatsby Ediciones, 2005), Carne para las flores, personal anthology (Aullido Libros, Spain 2011) and Donde la piel (Mantis Editores/Conarte, 2019). She appears among other anthologies, in Anuario de poesía mexicana (Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2006), in Hacia un azul imposible. (CEPE-UNAM/El Tapiz del Unicornio, 2023) and in Semillas de nuestra tierra. Muestra ecopoética mexicana (Grupo de Investigaciones Poéticas de la Madre Tierra and Cactus del viento, 2023). She won the Manuel Acuña Municipal Poetry Prize in 2008. In poetry she received a scholarship from the National Fund for Culture and the Arts (Fonca 2003-2004), stimuli as a young creator and as a creator with a career from the Faculty of Economics, Accounting and Administration (FECA) and the Stimulus Program for Artistic Creation and Development (PECDA) on several occasions. She was a fellow of the Regional Fund for Culture and the Arts (FORCA)-Northeast 2011-2012, in Lima, Peru, where she taught workshops on object poetry. She was the guest of honor of the Tangier International Festival 2013 in Morocco, where her poetry translated into Arabic was read. Some of her work has English, German, Portuguese and French versions. Among the magazines in which she has published, the contemporary poetry magazine of Valencia  21veintiúnversos stands out; and in Lichtungen, in the section Literature of the North of Mexico, her poems were translated by Christoph Janacs. She participated in the exhibition of the Contemporary Photography Program section Coahuila, Tasar el humor (Museo de las Artes Gráficas, 2018). She generated material poems for the Bergman Chair of the UNAM. Her translated poems were printed on the wall at the Cultural Institute of Mexico in Paris, accompanying sculptures by Avelina and Alejandro Fuentes Quezada in the exhibition Continuous Extinction (2021). Environmental photographs and video poems were exhibited at the Mohammed Drissi Gallery, in Tangier (2021). She participated in a literary table and in the Coahuilense visual art exhibition entitled Segar el mar with a visual poem, within the 49th Cervantino Festival (2022). A selection of sound poems worked around the poem “Piedra de Sol”, by Octavio Paz, were left to be heard at the Marie-José Tramini and Octavio Paz Memorial, at the San Ildefonso College, within the Nature and Poetry Festival 2023 organized by the Octavio Paz Extraordinary Chair. Part of her poetry has been translated in 2024 into Polish by the poet and novelist Julia Fiedorczuk. In June 2024 she was invited by the University of Warsaw to share her creative processes. Currently, Dr. Pawel Piszczatowski, from the Center for Environmental Humanities of the Faculty of Modern Languages at the University of Warsaw, works on an article about his acoustic-visual and material work. She works as director of scientific dissemination and projects at the Desert Museum, where she is a founding member.

Other activities involving the participant:

Poetry Room
If I were a Neanderthal

Antonio Ramos Revillas

Director of the University Press of the Autonomous University of Nuevo León (UANL) since 2016. He holds a degree in Spanish Literature from UANL, which awarded him the Arts Prize in 2015 for his literary career. He was part of the Mexico 20 selection, organized by the British Council, Conaculta, and the Hay Festival, recognizing him as one of the 20 most important writers under 40 in the country. His most recent novel is Playa Bagdad. He is a member of the National System of Creators of Art.

Other activities involving the participant:

Panel 3: Get studying. Bookstores and publishers at the desk
Panel 2: The Role of Publishers and Their Commitment to Knowledge Dissemination

Julián Herbert

(Mexico, 1971) 

He is the author of the books of poems El nombre de esta casa, La resistencia, Kubla Khan, Pastilla camaleón, Álbum Iscariote and La parte quemada; of the novels Un mundo infiel and Tomb Song; from the fictionalized historical chronicle House of the Pain of Others, The: Chronicle of a Small Genocide; from the storybooks Cocaína (manual del usuario) and Bring Me the Head of Quentin Tarantino; from the volume of chronicles Ahora imagino cosas; and from the collection of essays Suerte de principiante, among other titles. He contributed additional material to the film's script Cassandro. He won the  Gilberto Owen National Literature Prize, the Juan José Arreola Prize for short fiction, the Agustín Yáñez Prize for short fiction, the Jaén Novel Prize, the Elena Poniatowska Ibero-American Novel Prize, the MacGinnis Ritchie Award, the Borchard Foundation scholarship and the Ramón López Velarde national poetry award. Some of his books have been translated into English, French, Portuguese, Italian, German and Turkish. He is a member of the National System of Art Creators, and is a vocalist of Los Tigres de Borges.
X: @julian_herbert
 

Other activities involving the participant:

Poetry Room