John Degen

Poeta y novelista, es director ejecutivo de The Writers’ Union of Canada (Unión de Escritores de Canadá, TWUC) y presidente
del International Authors Forum (Foro Internacional de Autores, IAF) que, en conjunto, representan a más de 650 000 autores
de todo el mundo. Ha trabajado durante muchos años como administrador de las Artes, financiador y defensor de políticas en
materia de asuntos culturales. Ha formado parte de numerosos consejos y comités asesores del sector literario y artístico,
entre ellos el Book & Periodical Council, THIS Magazine y la Canadian Creators' Coalition, de los que ha sido presidente. Es
maestro en Literatura por la Universidad de Toronto. Su primera novela, The Uninvited Guest, fue finalista del premio
Amazon.ca First Novel Award en 2006.

Other activities involving the participant:

Public Lending Right for translators: opportunities and challenges

Paula Casal

Escritora y Secretaria de la Unión de Escritores y Escritoras de Argentina.

Carlos Wynter Melo

He questions gender, racial and identity norms with the psychological exploration of his characters. His stories usually narrate everyday events that, suddenly, are disrupted and reveal a commonly unknown reality. For this he uses parody, absurdity, Magic Realism, the fantastic, mirrors, doubles and similar mechanisms. He has received recognition from organizations such as the Hay Festival in London, the Guadalajara Book Fair, the Secretariat of Culture of Bogotá, the Ministry of Culture of Panama, the Technological University of Panama and the National University of Panama. His most recent books are Literatura olvidada (Octavio Méndez Pereira Award; Sudaquia Editores), Sueño con Tokio en el Darién (IPEL Awards; Editorial Uruk) and Los grandes dientes de Caperucita  (Ricardo Miró Award, 2024). He has been translated into English, Tagalog, Hungarian, Italian and German. In addition to being an author, he is a university professor and editorial consultant.

Other activities involving the participant:

Edit the map: Central America from the blank page

Jorge Comensal

Escritor y Director de la Revista UNAM.

Elena Salamanca

She is a Salvadoran historian, poet, fiction writer and art curator based in Mexico City. Author of several multidisciplinary books of poetry, fiction and academic historical works. Graduated from the doctorate in history from El Colegio de Mexico, she is an  Honorary Fellow in Writing by the International Writing Program of the University of Iowa.
She was invited as a writer-in-residence of the Fall Residency of the International Writing Program of the University of Iowa, in 2024. Her most recent books Kneeling before corn. Recuperating More-than-Human Intimacies on the Salvadoran Milpa (The University of Arizona Press, 2024) and [INCOGNITA FLORA CUSCATLANICA] (La Impresora, Puerto Rico, 2025) explore the relationship between more than human intimacies, grief, history and environmental memory. She has published three bilingual editions of narrative and poetry: Tal vez monstruos/Monsters Maybe (2022); Landsmoder (2022) and La familia o el olvido/Family or Oblivion (2017), her books have been published in the United States, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Italy, Guatemala and El Salvador. She has twice received the LLILAS Benson research grant from the Teresa Lozano Long Institute for Latin American Studies at the University of Texas at Austin, in 2023 and 2015. In 2009 she received the FONCA-AECID Artistic Residencies for Creators from Latin America Writing scholarship in Mexico. Combines literature, performance, memory and politics in the public space, and she actively advocates for the rights of women and girls in Central America.

María del Carmen Deola

More than twenty years in the publishing world, in Central America, first at Prisa Ediciones and, since 2014, at Penguin Random House Editorial Group, as editorial and promotion manager.
Master's degree in publishing. Degree in geography and history, with a specialty in medieval history.
I live in Guatemala.

Carlos Wynter Melo

He questions gender, racial and identity norms with the psychological exploration of his characters. His stories usually narrate everyday events that, suddenly, are disrupted and reveal a commonly unknown reality. For this he uses parody, absurdity, Magic Realism, the fantastic, mirrors, doubles and similar mechanisms. He has received recognition from organizations such as the Hay Festival in London, the Guadalajara Book Fair, the Secretariat of Culture of Bogotá, the Ministry of Culture of Panama, the Technological University of Panama and the National University of Panama. His most recent books are Literatura olvidada (Octavio Méndez Pereira Award; Sudaquia Editores), Sueño con Tokio en el Darién (IPEL Awards; Editorial Uruk) and Los grandes dientes de Caperucita  (Ricardo Miró Award, 2024). He has been translated into English, Tagalog, Hungarian, Italian and German. In addition to being an author, he is a university professor and editorial consultant.

Other activities involving the participant:

What do authors live on?