Antonio García Teijeiro

(Spain, 1952)

I am Antonio García Teijeiro, and I was born in Vigo (Galicia) at the height of the Franco regime. That had an impact on me because it conditioned my life. When I discovered everything that had been hidden from me, I felt anger and happiness at the same time. Poetry changed my life. Thanks to it, I started on a path towards freedom, commitment, and I managed to find myself.
Poetry has always been the center of my concerns. Therefore, I did not hesitate to write poetry for children and youth. From my teaching job I put verses in the hearts of my students. I didn't want them to live with their backs to the poetic word. Out of my more than one hundred publications, a large part is poetry intended for them, both in Galician and in Spanish.
I was worried about the faculty. So I taught a lot of courses and masters for teachers and librarians. I approached teacher training schools and gave lectures in Galicia, Spain, Colombia, Miami, Havana and Mexico City, among others. My book A poesía necesaria (Editorial Galaxia) is a manual to help teachers introduce poetry in the classroom. I collaborate in magazines and newspapers to make the “poetic fact" visible.
I won national awards (Merlin, Luna de Aire, Fervenzas Literarias...) and international (Pier Paolo Vergerio, from the University of Padua, IBBY Honor List...), always with poetry books.
In 2016 I was awarded the highest award in Spain: the National Prize of LIJ for my poetry collection Poemar or sea/ Sea Poems. Rafael Alberti, the great Andalusian poet, encouraged me to always write; Paco Ibáñez, a historical Spanish troubadour, set music to several of my poems and Álvaro Cunqueiro, a huge Galician writer, encouraged me to write newspaper articles.
My poems have been translated into Portuguese, Spanish, Catalan, Basque, and two years ago an anthology came out in Colombia.
For years I directed the radio program Os sons do silencio, and I co-directed the collection of LIJ, Árbore, from the prestigious Galician publishing house Galaxia.

Other activities involving the participant:

The word that touches and captivates us: stories and emotions

María Lado

(Spain, 1979) 

She is a Galician writer who stands out as a poet, although she has also published novels, children's and youth literature and theater. During her adolescence, she was part of the Literary Battalion of the Costa da Morte, where she began to recite and publish, participating in several titles of the collective. 

As a poet, she has published A primeira vision (1997), casa atlántica, casa cabaret  (2002), berlín (2005), Nove (2008), Amantes (2011), boso, mamá, si? (2015) and Gramo Stendhal (2020). 

Her interest in acting and orality have led her to experiment in stage poetry through different projects with which she has been touring the most diverse stages for more than 20 years. She currently combines writing with cultural management.

Other activities involving the participant:

Expanded Poetry Evening
The word that touches and captivates us: stories and emotions

Arantza Portabales

(Spain, 1973)

I was lucky enough to be born twice. One in San Sebastian, in 1973. The second, forty years later, in Galicia, when I decided that I needed to write stories, because telling our life is the best way to understand it.
Since then I have published two books of short stories and six novels in the Galician language and in Spanish. I have been translated into Italian, Hebrew, German, Russian, Czech and Portuguese. I have seen how one of my novels was adapted to the theater and I am already working on its transition to audiovisual.
More than a hundred thousand people have read my books and despite that, I keep intact the ability to be amazed by it, the desire to tell stories and for readers to discover them.
I was a civil servant in the Galician government's Treasury, but now I've had to choose between counting money or telling stories. So Arantza the writer won.
Although if I think about it, there are still two Arantzas: the one who lives to write and the one who writes while she lives.

Other activities involving the participant:

Ulysses as a metaphor: crimes, seas and journeys of no return
The word that touches and captivates us: stories and emotions