BIOS - S to Z



Michael Smith
 
Aura Sabina Aura Sabina 1985, Was born and lives in Mexico City, Distrito Federal.
Aura Sabina, poet, narrator and journalist belonging to the organization "Periodistas de a Pie". She was born under the sign of the crab and swears the moon is her double. She studied Communication Sciences at Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM), and attended a certification program on Literary Creation offered by the National Institute of Beaux Arts (INBA). Member of Raúl Renán's experimental poetry workshop.
Committed to the Women's Cause, she is an outraged, mystical and amorous autonomous activist. She collaborates with magazines like "Va de Nuez," "Mujeresnet," "Zarabanda," "Letralia," among others. Has taught at the UNAM Political and Science Department. Her work has been included in anthologies like "Hechiceras de la Palabra," "Paisajes Interiores," "Alter Lego," "Taller y fuga," "Mujeres de la lluvia," etc. Dreaming is very important for her. She very firmly believes that dreams are as important as what we believe tangible. Apprentice of psychomagic, a fervent admirer of the surrealists. Loves coffee, tobacco, good art, meadows, colonial cities, enchanted houses and heartbreak.

"I write since I was a child. I remember that in elementary school I wrote very detailed journals. I was an only child and I was my own partner in dialogue. It was one way to remember and explore myself. For me, writing is everything. I believe sometimes I can't express orally what I feel. Sometimes, because of shyness, or because my addressee is not near. Or may never will. It implies immediacy, like taking a photograph, with words, of an instant, the emotion. On the other hand, as no one interrupts me, being such a lonely trade, it allows me to reflect, mend and spin. Writing is my Ariadne's thread. This way, I can go into labyrinths and know I will come back, alive."
 
 
Raúl Aníbal Sánchez Raúl Aníbal Sánchez 1984, Was born and lives in Chihuahua City, Chihuahua.
He has been publishing, since 2006, en various periodicals, both digital and printed, among them, "Qadrivio," "Metapolítica," "HermanoCerdo," "Periódico de Poesía," and "Playboy." He is editor of the digital magazine "Aguja al Norte." In 2008 he won first place in Children's Short Stories competition called "Science and Technology for the boys and girls in Mexico City," for his short story "Moon by Day."
He's received honorable mentions in various other competitions, and first prize at the National Award for Children's and Youth Short Stories "Cuenta Conmigo" (CONAFE) and "Historias que trascienden," presented by Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana (UAM). He has also published in the anthologies "Cenzontle de papel" and "Florecer en la plaza mayor," by the publishing company Zócalo, of the Feria internacional del libro del Zócalo.
 
 
Stephanie Sandler Stephanie Sandler chairs the Slavic Department at Harvard University, where she teaches courses on poetry, film, and cultural theory in and beyond Russia. She has written and edited books on Alexander Pushkin, sexuality and the body in Russian culture, and Russian poetry. Her translations of poems by Fanailova, Alexandra Petrova, and Elena Shvarts have appeared in Circumference, Zoland Poetry, New Russian Poetry, and An Anthology of Contemporary Russian Women Poets.
 
K. Satchidanandan K. Satchidanandan (born 1946) is a poet and critic, writing both in Malalayam and in English. He has 23 collections of poetry, 16 of translated works, and 21 volumes of essays, besides four plays and three travel narratives. Satchidanandan's work may be found in 25 poetry collections, in translation in 19 languages, including Tamil, Hindi, Bengali, English, Arabic, French, German, Italian, Irish and Marathi. He has received 27 literary awards, including a recent Sahitya Akademi award and many honours such as the Knighthood of the Order of Merit from the Government of Italy and the Medallion of Friendship from the Government of Poland. Satchidanandan is considered a pioneer of modern Malayalam poetry. Pic: Sikha Khanna  
 
Eric Selland Eric Selland is a poet and translator living in Tokyo. His translations of Modernist and contemporary Japanese poets have appeared in a variety of journals and anthologies. He is author of Still Lifes (Hank's Original Loose Gravel Press, 2012).
 
Misha Semenov Misha Semenov is a member of the Princeton University Class of 2015, studying Literary Translation (under C.K. Williams) and Urban Planning. Born in San Francisco to Russian parents, Semenov aims to bridge the gap between Russian poetry and American readers. His work may befound online at www.mishasemenov.com.
 
Sudeep Sen Sudeep Sen has been described as 'one of the finest younger English-language poets in the international literary scene' (BBC Radio). Sen's prize-winning books include: Postmarked India: New & Selected Poems (HarperCollins), Distracted Geographies, Prayer Flag, Rain, Aria (A K Ramanujan Translation Award), Ladakh, Letters of Glass, and The HarperCollins Book of English Poetry (editor). Blue Nude: New & Selected Poems | Translations 1979-2014 (Jorge Zalamea International Poetry Prize) is forthcoming. His poems, translated into twenty-five languages, have featured in major international anthologies. His words have appeared in the TLS, Newsweek, Guardian, Observer, Independent, Telegraph, Herald, Harvard Review, Hindu, Hindustan Times, Times of India, Outlook, India Today, and broadcast on BBC, PBS, CNN IBN, NDTV, AIR & Doordarshan. Sen's newer work appears in New Writing 15 (Granta), Language for a New Century (Norton), Leela (Collins), Indian Love Poems (Knopf/Random House/Everyman), Out of Bounds (Bloodaxe), and Initiate: Oxford New Writing (Blackwell). He is the editorial director of AARK ARTS and the editor of Atlas. Sen is the first Asian to be honoured with an invitation to participate at the 2013 Nobel Laureate Week in St Lucia, where he delivered the Derek Walcott Lecture and read his poetry. A special commemorative edition of his work, Fractals: New & Selected Poems|Translations 1978-2013, was released by the Nobel laureate Derek Walcott in the presence of H.E. Dame Pearlette Louisy, Governor General (President) of St Lucia.His poem Kargil first appeared in Platform, Yellow Nib, Caravan, Australian Poetry Journal and Ladakh (Tyrone Guthrie Centre / Gallerie)Pic: Sara Bowman  
 
Andrei Sen-Senkov Andrei Sen-Senkov is a poet, prose writer, and photographer. He is the author of five books of poetry, prose and "visual poems". He is a regular participant in Moscow literary festivals, performing free verse and short prose. In 1998 he was an award-winner at the Turgenev Festival for Short Prose, and in 2006 he was short-listed for the Andrei Bely Award.
 
Tsoltim Ngima Shakabpa Tsoltim Ngima Shakabpa was born in Lhasa, Tibet on September 7, 1943. He was educated in Tibet, India and the United States. He had served the Tibetan Government in-Exile in India and was a senior international banker in the United States until he was diagnosed with stomach cancer in1993. He battled his way to good health through meditation and western medicine but was struck down again with a debilitating stroke in 1999. Despite these setbacks in 2002, Mr. Shakabpa wrote a book of poems entitled, RECORDS D'UN TIBETA, which has been translated and published in the Catalan language by the prestigious Spanish publishing firm, Pages Editors. In April 2002, he received the EDITOR'S CHOICE AWARD for Outsanding Achievement in Poetry from the International Library of Poetry. He continues to write poetry and fight for the independence of Tibet, and maintains a healthy attitude toward life.  
 
Tatiana Shcherbina Tatiana Shcherbina , born in 1954 in Moscow, has participated in many international poetry festivals in Europe and North America and her poems have been translated into fifteen languages. She was awarded the Bourse de Création of the National Center of Literature in France. Shcherbina is the author of many books of poetry and prose (one in French) most recently Krokozyabry (2011). In the 1990s, she worked in Germany and France, then returned to Moscow, where she has been editor of Esthete and continues to live. In the 2000s she turned increasingly to prose. In 2012, three of her originally samizdat books of the 1980s were reissued.
 
Nilima Sheikh Nilima Sheikh Was born to doctor parents in 1945 in Delhi. Influenced while schooling with artists like Devyani and Kanwal Krishna to consider art as a profession, she joined the Faculty of Fine Arts at the MS University of Baroda in 1965 after graduating from Delhi University in History. Studying painting at Baroda under the mentorship of KG Subramanyan introduced her to the linguistics of varied art-making processes.
  Nilima started exhibiting professionally in 1969 while still studying for her Master's in Fine Arts. Her recent solo exhibitions include Each Night put Kashmir in your Dreams at Chemould Prescott Road, Mumbai in 2010 and Drawing Trails at Gallery Espace in New Delhi in 2009. Recent group participations include Place-Time-Play, Contemporary Art from West Heavens to Middle Kingdom in Shanghai in 2010 and India moderna, Institut Valencia d'Art Modern at Valencia in 2008.
  During the last decade Nilima has been working on subjects that relate to the northern region of the sub-continent, particularly to Kashmir. This has accumulated in a body of work that tries creating visual language to bring together different aspects of the region and its histories in an attempt to understand some of the complexities therein. Her works include paintings inspired by Indian saint poets such as the 12th century Mahadevi Akka and 14th century Kashmiri poet Lal Ded. She has also done extensive work with traditional Gujarati poems and songs and paintings based on the poetry of Kashmiri expat Agha Shahid Ali.
  Travels, abroad and within India, since 1974 to participate in artists' camps, workshops and seminars, and often with her husband Gulammohammed Sheikh to look at the art of the world have punctuated Nilima's career. Her interest in tempera painting traditions has helped shape her oeuvre which ranges from small manuscript format works and scrolls on paper and silk in varied tempera techniques to large canvas hangings painted in casein tempera. Nilima has designed and painted sets for theatre productions between 1993 and 2000. She has written on art in books, journals and catalogue essays since 1971 and also illustrated books for children.
 
 
Manohar Shetty Manohar Shetty (b 1953) has published five books of poems including Domestic Creatures (Oxford University Press, New Delhi). His new book is Body Language (Poetrywala, 2012). In the UK his poems have appeared in London Magazine, Poetry Review, Wasafiri and Poetry Wales. He has edited a special edition on English language poets of India for Poetry Wales. In the United States his poems have been published in Chelsea, Rattapallax, Fulcrum, Shenandoah, The Common, The Baffler, Atlanta Review and New Letters, besides Helix in Australia. Several anthologies feature his work, notably The Oxford-India Anthology of Twelve Modern Indian Poets (ed Arvind Krishna Mehrotra, OUP, N Delhi) and in anthologies edited by Eunice de Souza and Vilas Sarang. His poems have been translated into Italian, Finnish, German, Slovenian and Marathi. Shetty has been a Homi Bhabha and Senior Sahitya Akademi Fellow. He was also awarded a Fellowship by Fundacao Oriente. He edited Goa Today, a monthly magazine, for eight years. He is the editor of Ferry Crossing: Short Stories from Goa (Penguin India), which has gone into several editions and is a standard text in colleges around Goa. Goa Travels, an anthology of travel writings, will be published in 2013 by Rupa.  
 
Menka Shivdasani Menka Shivdasani is a founder member of Poetry Circle, which began in Mumbai in 1986. Her first book of poems, the critically acclaimed Nirvana at Ten Rupees, was published by Adil Jussawalla for XAL-Praxis in 1990. Her second collection Stet first appeared in 2001. Menka is also co-translator of Freedom and Fissures, an anthology of Sindhi Partition poetry, published by the Sahitya Akademi in 1998. An anthology of women's writing that she edited, which forms part of a series being brought out by Sound and Picture Archives for Research on Women (SPARROW) is due to be published shortly. Menka's poems have appeared in several publications, both in India and elsewhere. These include Poetry Review (London), Poetry Wales, Fulcrum (USA), Many Mountains Moving (USA), Seminary Ridge Review (Gettysburg), We Speak in Changing Languages (a Sahitya Akademi anthology), the Bloodaxe Book of Contemporary Indian Poets, 60 Indian Poets (Penguin Books India), Both Sides of the Sky, the Harper Collins Book of English Poetry and Indian Literature in English: An Anthology, a textbook of the University of Mumbai. Menka is joint coordinator of the Culture Beat initiative at the Mumbai Press Club in Mumbai and Mumbai coordinator for the global movement, 100 Thousand Poets for Change. She is a founding member of Asia Pacific Writers & Translators Association. Menka's career as a journalist includes a stint with South China Morning Post in Hong Kong, and the publication of eight books with Raju Kane, three of which were released by the then prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.  
 
Larissa Shmailo Larissa Shmailo (editor) translated the Russian transrational opera Victory over the Sun for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art's landmark restaging of the work in 1981. She was the honorable mention honoree for the 2011 Compass Award for her translation of Nikolai Gumilev and translates for the Edward A. Nida Institute of Biblical Scholarship's on biblical translation in Russia for its History of Bible Translation book series. Her work has appeared in Fulcrum, Barrow Street, Drunken Boat, Jacket and many other journals, as well as in the anthologies Words for the Wedding (Penguin) and Contemporary Russian Poetry (Dalkey Archive Press). Her books of poetry are In Paran, Fib Sequence, and A Cure for Suicide; her poetry CDs are The No-Net World and Exorcism; she received the 2009 New Century Music Awards for poetry with electronica, jazz, and rock, and "Best Poetry Album" for Exorcism.
She is on the Web at www.larissashmailo.com.
 
Sam Silva Sam Silva has poetry in print magazines including, but not limited to Samisdat, The ECU Rebel, Sow's Ear, The American Muse, St. Andrews Review, Dog River Review, Third Lung Review, Main St. Rag, Charlotte Poetry Review, Parnasus...most (but not all) of these magazines are now defunct. For the Past four years his magazine portfolio has grown by and large on line including Rio Del Arts, Megaera, Big Bridge, Views unplugged, Comrade Magazine, Ken Again and at least thirty others. Over the years four small presses have published a total of nine chapbooks by Sam Silva ...these, being Third Lung Press, M.A.F. Press, Alpha Beat Press, Trouth Creek Press. Brown and Yale Universities solicited many of these chapbooks for their libraries. These chapbooks were well received in newspaper reviews by Shelby Stephenson, Ron Bayes, Steve Smith, and the late poet laureate of North Carolina Sam Ragan. Silva has ebooks available without cost at Physikgarden.com.He has well over 300 poems archived in online magazines. He was nominated a total of seven times by three small presses and has a full length collection of poetry called Eating and Drinking based on a royalties contract signed with Bright Spark Creative available for order at any online bookstore and has other full length poetry books available at http://www.lulu.com . Three spoken word CDs of Sam Silva's have been marketed through CDBaby.
 
Alexandr Skidan Alexandr Skidan was born in Leningrad in 1965. He is a poet, critic, and translator and the author of four collections of poetry and three books of essays, including the recent Sum of Poetics." He has translated contemporary American poetry and fiction, as well as theoretical works of Paul de Man, J. Hillis Miller, Jean-Luc Nancy, Paolo Virno, and Gerald Raunig. Skidan participated in the International Writing Program (Iowa, 1994) and in the Open World Program (2005). He is the winner of the Andrey Bely Prize (2006). His poetry is translated into many languages and published in different anthologies. In 2008 his book Red Shifting was published in US by Ugly Duckling Presse. He is co-editor of the New Literary Review magazine (Moscow). He lives in Saint-Petersburg.
 
Fred Skolnik Fred Skolnik was born in New York City and has lived in Israel since 1963. He is best known as the editor in chief of the 22-volume second edition of the Encyclopaedia Judaica, winner of the 2007 Dartmouth Medal. His novel The Other Shore (Aqueous Books, 2011) is an epic work depicting Israeli society at a critical juncture in its recent history. His stories, essays and poems have appeared in around 80 journals, including TriQuarterly, Gargoyle, The MacGuffin, Minnetonka Review, Los Angeles Review, Prism Review, Words & Images, Literary House Review, Underground Voices, Third Coast and Polluto.
 
Ann Tashi Slater Ann Tashi Slater 's work has appeared or is forthcoming in New World Writing, Shenandoah, Gulf Coast, Kyoto Journal, and failbetter, as well as in American Dragons (HarperCollins), an anthology of work by Asian American writers, and Tomo (Stone Bridge). Her translation of a novella by Cuban writer Reinaldo Arenas was published in Old Rosa (Grove). She is working on a multi-generational novel based on the Tibetan side of her family and a travel memoir set in India. A longtime resident of Tokyo, Slater teaches American literature at a Japanese university. Her latest entry at Big Bridge: "Things You Dreamed of and Things You Didn't" originally appeared in Yomimono. Visit her website www.anntashislater.com and Huffington Post blog www.huffingtonpost.com/ann-tashi-slater/.
 
Yevgeny Slivkin Yevgeny Slivkin (b. 1955) received an MFA in Creative Writing from the A. M. Gorky Institute in Moscow and a Ph.D. in Russian Literature from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He has taught Russian literature and language at Georgetown University, George Washington University, Grand Valley State University, the University of Oklahoma, Middlebury College, and the University of Denver, where he is now a lecturer. He is the author of four collections of poetry published in Russia and numerous scholarly articles which have appeared in American, European, and Russian professional academic journals.
 
Michael Smith Yevgeny Slivkin has translated into English and published some of the most difficult and exhilarating poets in Spanish, including Federico García Lorca, Pablo Neruda, Miguel Hernández (Unceasing Lightning as well as his Prison Poems) and the two great Spanish masters of the baroque, Francisco de Quevedo and Luis de Góngora. He has also translated Gerardo Diego's Manual de espumas, a Selected Poems of José Hierro and selections of the poems of Juan Jiménez and Luis Cernuda, among others. For Shearsman he has translated in three volumes the poetry of the great 20th century Peruvian poet, César Vallejo, Trilce,Complete Later Poems 1923-1938 and The Black Heralds(2006, 2007), in which he collaborated with the Peruvian scholar, Valentino Gianuzzi, thus bringing all of Vallejo's poetry into English-these volumes have recently been republished by Shearsman in a single volume of almost 800 pages, now being considered as the definitive version in English. There is also a Selected Poemsof Vallejo, drawn from the complete survey. His translations (with Luis Ingelmo) of the Selected Poems of Rosalía de Castro and of the Collected Poems/Rimas of Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer were also published by Shearsman Books in 2007/8; with Luis Ingelmo, he has also translated the Complete Poems of Claudio Rodríguez and (with Beatriz White) a Selected Poems of Juan Antonio Villacañas, (Shearsman 2008 & 2009). Awaiting publication are: Nostalgia for Death by the Mexican poet Villaurrutia and Froth: A Manual by Gerardo Diego. His translation of Miguel Hernández's Cancionero y romancero de ausencia was published in the United States in 2008 by Parlor Press. He has also published a Selected Poems of Elsa Cross and Veronica Volkow, among others. Four of his translations of poems by Rosalía de Castro will be published in the Norton Anthology of World Literature in 2013. He has contributed a number of translations to The Whole Island: Six Decades of Cuban Poetry edited by Mark Weiss (University of California Press, 2009). In 2012 Shearsman published a new version of his translation, with Luis Ingelmo, of Cantes Flamencos / Flamenco Songs.He is now working on a substantial new collection of his own poetry and a translation of the Spanish Baroque poet, Fernando de Herrera, which will be published by Shearsman late in 2013.
 
Sergei Sokolovskiy Sergei Sokolovskiy born in 1972, is a prose writer and editor. Sokolovskiy's short fiction has been published in the anthologies Babylon (winning first prize for prose in the Ulov online literary competition in 2000), Okrestnosti, Avtornik and others. His novella "Fast Food" was published as a stand-alone book in 2002. Together with Danila Davydov, he published and edited the journal Shestaya Kolonna (Sixth Column) in 1998; he was also the editor the Okrestnosti (The Environs) anthology in 2000-2001. His publishing house Autochton has published a series of books by young authors. Sokolovskiy has served as the secretary of the Debut literary prize and curates the website Vernitskii Literature: Young Russian Writers. He lives in Moscow.
 
Bhuchung D. Sonam Bhuchung D. Sonam was born in Tibet. In exile, he studied at the Tibetan Children's Village School in Dharamsala, India. His books include Dandelions of Tibet, Muses in Exile: An Anthology of Tibetan Poetry, Conflict of Duality and Songs from a Distance.  
 
Lorena Sosa Lorena Sosa 1988, Was born and lives in Chihuahua City, Chihuahua.
She writes for pleasure, cause she believes it is the most wholesome and pure act of freedom, cause she believes that the white page is a place where life expands, and so does death. Because writing gives her the possibility of making a living and acquiring life, it allows her to give death to indifference and the occasional disappointment.
She graduated in Spanish Literature at the Universidad Autónoma de Chihuahua, and acknowledges Jesús Chávez Marín, friend and spiritual father, as one of his main mentors, who encouraged her to do that which made her most happy: literature. Today, there is no other purpose in her life other than writing about what she feels and sees, whenever her thoughts become assailed by wasps, her womb by volcanoes, and her heart by fireflies.
Books and authors that have left an imprint on her include: Ernesto Cardenal, "Fahrenheit 451°" by Ray Bradbury, "La vida es sueño" by Pedro Calderón de la Barca, Julio Cortázar's short stories, "Cien años de Soledad" by Gabriel García Márquez. Even though she doesn't remember all the books she's read, she knows they have all helped forming the vertebra of her "book spine", on which her eyes rested and today make their life revolutionize.
She publishes a monthly column at the University newspaper, and has been included in various literature magazines and poetry anthologies.
 
 
K.Srilata K.Srilata A poet, fiction writer and translator, Srilata is Associate Professor of English at the Dept. of Humanities and Social Sciences, IIT Madras. She teaches Literatures in Translation and Creative Writing. Srilata was a writer-in-residence at the University of Stirling, at Sangam House and at the Yeonhui Art Space in Seoul. Her debut novel Table for Four, long-listed in 2009 for the Man Asian literary prize, was published by Penguin. Srilata won the British Council-Poetry Society prize, the Gouri Majumdar poetry prize and the Unisun-British Council poetry award. Her work has been featured in The BloodAxe Anthology of Indian Poets, The Harper Collins Book of English Poetry, Recours au Poeme, Caravan, Penguin India's First Proofs, Fulcrum, The Little Magazine, Kavya Bharati and The Hindu. Srilata has two collections of poems, Seablue Child and Arriving Shortly. She also co-edited the anthology Rapids of a Great River: The Penguin Book of Tamil Poetry.  
 
Maria Stepanova Maria Stepanova was born in Moscow in 1972 and graduated from the Gorky Literary Institute in 1995. She is a poet, essayist and journalist, from 2005 to 2012 the editor in chief of the Internet site OpenSpace.ru and since 2012 the editor in chief of the cultural site Colta.ru. Her books of poetry include Songs of the Northern Southerners, About the Twins,/Here-the world, Happiness, Physiology and Small History, The Prose of Ivan Sidorov, Kireevsky, and Verses and Prose in One Volume. Her awards include the Znamya Prize (1993, 2011), the Pasternak Prize (2005), the Andrei Bely Prize (2005), the Hubert Wurda Fund for the Best Young Lyric Poet in Eastern Europe (2006), the "Moskovskii schet" Prize (2006 and 2009), the Lerici Pea Mosca Prize (2011), and the Anthologia Prize (2012); she held a fellowship from the Joseph Brodsky Memorial Fund in 2010. She lives and works in Moscow, and her work has been translated into many languages.
 
Gerd Stern Gerd Stern is a poet and multimedia artist. His "First Poems and Other"s was published in 1952, "Afterimage" in 1965, "Fragmeants" in 2002 and ""Bephorisms, E-dicts & Prefixbles" will appear in late 2013. His "Oral History was published by ROHO, University of California, Berkeley in 2002 and is available on line.
   A founder of the media arts collaborative commune USCO, Stern's first exhibition of sound and light sculptures and word collages was at NYC's Allen Stone Gallery in 1962 followed by 1963 at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art accompanied by his first multi-media performance "?Who R U & What's Happening?" USCO's performances and exhibitions took place all over the United States and Europe in galleries, museums and at universities. In recent years the work was shown as part of "Summer of Love" three times at European museums and at the Whitney Museum of American Art, followed by "Traces of the Sacred" at Paris' Centre Georges Pompidou and this past year at the Centro de Arte Contemperaneo in Sevilla, Spain.
    Stern's video art works have been shown on public television. He taught communications and media practice at Harvard University's School of Education and the Universityof California, Santa Cruz. He was a friend, and also associated with media philosopher Marshall McLuhan, and this summer will be teaching a seminar on technological prophetics, "McLuhan Plus" at ZKM, The Center for Art and Media in Karlsruhe, Germany.
 
 
Alexander Stessin Alexander Stessin was born in Moscow in 1978 and moved to the United States in 1990. He graduated from the University at Buffalo Poetics Program where he was a student of Robert Creeley, Charles Bernstein, and Susan Howe. His poetry, essays, and fictionhave been published in several Russian literary anthologies and a number of periodicals, including Novyi Mir, Znamya, Oktyabr', Zvezda, Inostrannaya Literatura, etc. He received the "Tamizdat" prize, Gumilev poetry prize, and the "Moscow Score" award ("Top Ten Russian Poetry Books of 2010") for his collection of poems Visiting Hours (Russian Gulliver Publishing House, 2010). He currentlylives in New York where he practices medicine.
 
Sergey Stratanovsky Sergey Stratanovsky was born in in 1944 in Leningrad, and graduated from Leningrad University with a degree in Russian language and literature. He participated in the unofficial cultural movement of the 1970s and1980s, publishing (with Kirill Butyrin) the typewritten journal Obvodny Kanal. He has been writing poetry since 1968, first published abroad in 1977 in Apollon 77, and eventually in Russia in 1985 in Club-81's Krug. Stratanovsky is the author of nine books of poetry, the most recent in 2013, and the winner of many awards, including the first Brodsky Award in 2000, the Pasternak Prize in 2004, and the Andrey Bely Prize in 2010.
 
Arundhathi Subramaniam Arundhathi Subramaniam is the author of three books of poems, most recently Where I Live: New and Selected Poems (Bloodaxe, UK). Her prose works include the bestselling biography of a contemporary mystic (Sadhguru: More Than a Life, (Penguin, severally reprinted) and a book on the Buddha: The Book of Buddha (Penguin, reprinted several times). As editor, she is the author of Another Country: An Anthology of Contemporary Indian Poetry in English (Sahitya Akademi, 2013). She has also edited on a Penguin anthology of essays on sacred journeys in India (Pilgrim's India, 2011), and co-edited a Penguin anthology of contemporary Indian love poems in English (Confronting Love, 2005). She has received the Raza Award for Poetry (2009), the Charles Wallace Fellowship (for a 3-month writing residency at the University of Stirling) in 2003; the Visiting Arts Fellowship for a poetry tour of the UK (organized by the Poetry Society) in 2006; and the Homi Bhabha Fellowship in 2012.  
 
Jane Summer Jane Summer a graduate of Kirkland College, is the author of The Silk Road (Alyson Books). Her poetry and short stories have appeared most recently in Ploughshares, Pitkin Review, Left Curve, The Spoon River Poetry Review, Diner, Yalobusha Review, and North Dakota Quarterly. She is the Associate Editor of the Pitkin Review and is currently seeking her MFA from Goddard College.  
 
Carmen Tafolla Carmen Tafolla Dr. Carmen Tafolla is a BA, MA, Ph.D., and Ph.C.(Curandera of Philosophy), and author of more than 20 books. I currently teach at University of Texas-San Antonio in Mexican-American Studies and Bicultural-Bilingual Studies. Was very honored to have been selected the Inaugural Poet Laureate of San Antonio, and simultaneously to have been banned in Arizona. You can stay current with Tafolla's work at www.carmentafolla.com  
 
Ban Tenzin Ban Tenzin is a Tibetan student at the Tibetan residential school in India. He was born in Nepal and educated in India.  
 
Anand Thakore Anand Thakore was born in Mumbai in 1971. He spent a part of his childhood in Britain and has lived in India since then. Waking in December (2001), Elephant Bathing (2012) and Mughal Sequence (2012) are his three collections of poetry. A Hindustani classical vocalist by profession, he trained for many years with Pandit Satyasheel Deshpande and has given concerts in various parts of the country. He is the founder of Harbour Line, a publishing collective, and runs Kshitij, an interactive forum for musicians. He lives in Mumbai where he teaches Hindustani vocal music, and describes his work as 'having arisen from a fortuitous confluence of seemingly disparate cultural histories'.  
 
Betty Thompkins Betty Thompkins -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
 
Eric Thompson Eric Thompson collage artist, noiseician,visual poet, from the deep south.  
 
Jeet Thayil Jeet Thayil's four poetry collections include English and These Errors Are Correct, which won the 2012 Sahitya Akademi Award for English. He is the editor of 60 Indian Poets and The Bloodaxe Book of Contemporary Indian Poets. He is one half of the contemporary music project Sridhar/Thayil, and his libretto for the opera Babur in London toured internationally last year. His debut novel Narcopolis was shortlisted for the 2012 Man Booker prize, and won the 2013 DSC prize for literature. It will be published in ten languages. The poems reproduced here, with the author's permission, are from These Errors are Correct, published by Tranquebar in 2008. Pic: Basso Cannarsa  
 
Justin Thrift Justin Thrift is a young writer living in New York City. He works in the publishing industry and is currently writing his first novel.  
 
Andrew Topel Andrew Topel is serving a life sentence in san quentin; he is also kidding - keeping you, dear reader, on your toes.  
 
Gyalpo Tsering Gyalpo Tsering completed his schooling from the prestigious Dr. Graham's Homes in Kalimpong. In 1973 he joined the Tibetan resistance then operating from Mustang, in Western Nepal. Later he worked at the Information and Publicity Office of H. H. the Dalai Lama (now the Department of Information and International Relations, DIIR) in Dharamsala, India. Gyalpo has now settled in Canada.  
 
Tenzin Tsundue Tenzin Tsundue is a writer-activist born to a refugee family in Manali, North India. He is the author of three books: Crossing the Border, KORA: stories & poems and Semshook: Essays on Tibetan Freedom Struggle. His writings have been published in numerous magazines and dailies; and his literary skills won him the first-ever 'Outlook-Picador Award for non-fiction' in 2001. Tsundue has no permanent residence.  
 
Alexei Tsvetkov Alexei Tsvetkov (b. 1947) grew up in Zaporizhia and briefly studied chemistry at the Odessa University, then history and journalism at the Moscow State University. Together with Sergey Gandlevsky, Bakhyt Kenjeev, and Alexander Soprovsky he founded the unofficial group of poets Moscow Time. In 1975 he was arrested and deported from Moscow and in the same year emigrated to the United States. He entered the University of Michigan graduate school and in 1983 was awarded a PhD degree. Tsvetkov taught Russian language and literature at Dickinson College, Pennsylvania, then worked as an international broadcaster at the Voice of America radio station, subsequently at the Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, first in Munich, later in Prague. Currently he is a freelance writer based in New York City. In 2007 he was awarded Andrei Bely prize for poetry.
 
Rodrigo Toscano Rodrigo Toscano most recent collection is Deck of Deeds (Counterpath Press, 2012). His previous, Collapsible Poetics Theater (Fence Books, 2008), was a National Poetry Series Selection. Toscano's work has appeared in numerous anthologies, including Against Expression, Diasporic Avant Gardes, Poetic Voices Without Borders, Best American Poetry, Criminal's Cabinet: An anthology of poetry and fiction, and McSweeny's "Poets Picking Poets." It has also been translated into French, Dutch, Italian, German, Portuguese and Catalan. He resides in Brooklyn, and works for the Labor Institute as liaison for the United Steelworkers & Communication Workers of America.  
 
Alexander Ulanov Alexander Ulanov (1963) lives in Samara and works at Samara State Aerospace University. His books of poetry are Wind Direction (1990), Dry Light (1993), Waves and Stairs (1997), Displacements + (2007), Methods of Seeing (2012), and the book of prose Between We (2006). He has written more than 350 articles and book reviews about contemporary literature, received the Andrey Bely prize for criticism (2009). His translations include contemporary American poets, Dylan Thomas, and Paul Valery.
 
Luis Valderaz Luis Valderaz is an educator, artist and co-owner of 3rd Space Art Gallery in San Antonio, Texas. He has had works featured in two books; Chicano Art for Our Millennium (2004), and Triumph in Our Communities: Four Decades of Mexican American Art (2005), published by Bilingual Review Press. He founded and organized a nationally recognized annual group exhibit featuring Latino artists entitled Project: MASA I, II, and III, an exhibit focusing on Chicano identities. Valderaz works are included in the permanent collections of Arizona State University, the University of Texas San Antonio, and the Art Museum of South Texas. Contact him at www.intzalan-luisvalderas.blogspot.com
 
Pablo Valdes Pablo Valdés 1984, Was born in Torreón, Coahuila and lives in the Greenville, N.C.
He is an anthropologist (Universidad Veracruzana), and a poet. He received a honorable mention at the José Emilio Pacheco Poetry Competition in 2008, for his collection "Que me envuelve esta soledad."
Even though he sporadically was already writing one or some other poem, and had received as a gift his first poetry notebook from his platonic love in middle school, his Spanish teacher, Pablo started to write conscientiously as a scape valve, somewhere around 2007. Lovelorn. After that, he kept the bad habit. Other vices he adds to the list, include writing songs and never finishing them and play chess during working hours.
Even though the South calls him, some strange force keeps pushing him north. Presently, he's finishing his Masters in Anthropology from East Carolina University.
 
 
Viktoria Valenzuela Viktoria Valenzuela a writer living in San Antonio, earned her Creative Writing B.A. from S.U.N.Y. Oswego 2010. She has written for Being Latino Magazine and The Arts United Magazine. Her essays and poetry have been published on La Bloga(2012) , The MALCS Journal (Sp 2012), as well as in the Trunk Book Series: Blood (Dec. 2012) out of Sydney, Australia. Valenzuela is currently writing her first book on the musical life history of her grandfather, Orquesta player, Cayetano Valenzuela. Her latest performance was a dramatic reading of "Juntos en La Lumbre", original poetry for San Antonio's city wide event Luminaria (Mar 2013),. You can read more by Valenzuela by logging on to Viktoriavalenzuela.wordpress.com or Facebook under "Viktoria Valenzuela". She is the Chief Editor of The Arts United Magazine and a contributing writer.  
 
Elier Eskalante Verdugo Elier Eskalante Verdugo 1987, Was born and lives in Motozintla, Chiapas
"After having studied all my life in Motozintla, in 2006 I migrated to the city of Saltillo to start my studies at Universidad Autónoma Agraria Antonio Narro, to become a production agronomist, graduating on December, 2010. Presently, I am back in my home town, collaborating in a civil association, looking for new opportunities in the rural area. I like music, preferably rock, Mexican ska, and traditional ballad ("trova"). I was part of a rock band called "Etilika," which represented my college, I played second guitar."
"I write because of an ontological need, it is fundamental for human beings to express as little or as much of their ideas, spanning great constellations of thought, which include every fragment of many thinkers from planet Earth and the universe. I usually write in my bedroom, when circumstances merit the use of pen and pencil, to express my thoughts about different phenomena which turn up in my life or the life of others. I am an admirer of the unforgettable Chiapas poet Jaime Sabines, and his writings have been a great influence in my life. The way I relate problems which belong to Earth with the universe is something left in my mind after I had this great professor at the university who was teaching a class called "Crops and Microclimate", and I remember he based a lot on quantum physics to explain the phenomena happening in crops and the ways these would perceive the sun's great energy for their healthy development. The universe is important for me, because all phenomena revolve around it, therefore our problems are based on gravitation. Love and relativity, according to Einstein, who in his theory explains why, on occasions, time lengthens or shortens, and that depends on the circumstances we find ourselves in."

URL:
www.facebook.com/Elier.poetadeNingunLugar
 
 
Dmitry Vodennikov Dmitry Vodennikov (b. 1968 Moscow) has a degree in philology from the Moscow State Pedagogy Institute. He worked for Radio Russia, where he hosted "Neophyte Notes" and "Our Bell Tower." He was a contributing editor for the NLO anthology of Russian poetry Nine Measurements(2004). He is the author of five books, including Draft (2006). His poetry was anthologized in Contemporary Russian Poetry (Dalkey Archive 2008).
 
Chukie Shakabpa Wangdu Chukie Shakabpa Wangdu was born in Tibet. She grew up in India, and has lived in New York City since 1966, first as a student, and later as an activist in an effort to draw attention to the plight of Tibet, while working as an educator and raising a family. Her personal activism began in 1977 when she watched and then precipitated a call-in protest against day-time TV talk show host, Stanley Seigal, when he spewed racist remarks about Tibetans during his monologue. In March, 1991, as the president (1990-1994) of the Tibetan Women's Association (TWA)'s first north american branch, Ms. Wangdu attended the World Women's Congress for a Healthy Planet in Miami, Fl., where she brought attention to the human rights violations and environmental degradation taking place in occupied-Tibet. Her personal activism for Tibetan freedom has continued through her participation in protest rallys, walks and other actions, including articles and letters on digital sites and print media.
Ms. Wangdu believes a truly free Tibet will heal the Tibetan plateau and help promote the sustainability of planet earth. Read her recent article:
www.tibetanpoliticalreview.org/articles/tibetansarenolongerpleadingtheyaredeclaring
 
 
Rigzin_Wangchuk Rigzin Wangchuk -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
 
Lewis Warsh Lewis Warsh most recent books are A Place in the Sun (Spuyten Duyvil), Inseparable: Poems 1995-2005 (Granary Books), Touch of the Whip (Singing Horse) and The Origin of the World (Creative Arts). He is editor and publisher of United Artists Books and director of the MFA program in creative writing at Long Island University, Brooklyn. Mimeo Mimeo #7 (fall 2012) featured his poems, stories and collages.  
 
Bruce Weber Bruce Weber is the author of five published books of poetry, including The Break-up of My First Marriage (Rogue Scholars Press, 2009). His work has appeared in numerous magazines, as well as in several anthologies. including Up is Up, But So Is Down: Downtown Writings, 1978-1992 ( New York : New York University , 2006),. By day, Bruce is Senior Curator at the National Academy Museum , and splits his time between his homes in New York City and Saugerties , New York . He has shown his collages at various spaces, including a solo exhibition at Turtle Point Press in the Woolworth Buidling.  
 
Philip Wells Philip Wells has performed as The Fire Poet everywhere from Buckingham Palace to The Royal Albert Hall, from Canterbury Cathedral to The Brixton Fridge, in children's hospitals and maximum security prisons, on radio and TV. He has written an opera about Thomas Becket and a play about Saint Francis. His latest poetry collection, "Horse Whispering in the Military Industrial Complex" is published by SALT. Later this year his collection of poems for children, "The Alien Guide from Inner Space", will be published, also by SALT.  
 
A Whitaker A. Whittaker "El Galo" 1986, Was born and lives in Mexico City, Distrito Federal.
Actor, poet, visual and circus artist. Streetwise and self-taught, he's dedicated to the idleness and pleasure of the word. His motto: "I move then I exist." He has years of trajectory in the great theater of the streets. Presently, he's focus is on surviving in this world and intervening public spaces through scenic poetry, theatre improvisation and clowning.

A Chat Mini Interview:
Pilar: Why do you write?
Galo: so I won't kill my neighbors
P: so, if you have no neighbors, you don't write?
G: if I say I write because I like it seems too simple
if I say, cause it's my life, it's so corny it makes me sick...
to avoid arthritis... that has been said already
it is the best way I know to relate and interact with the world in a healthy manner and it keeps me away from death
no, not the last reason
...
the Skinny Lady just knocked on my door
 
 
Les Wicks Les Wicks Over 35 years Wicks has performed at festivals, schools, prison etc. Published in over 250 different magazines, anthologies & newspapers across 15 countries in 9 languages. Conducts workshops & runs Meuse Press which focuses on poetry outreach projects like poetry on buses & poetry published on the surface of a river. His 10th book of poetry is Barking Wings (PressPress, 2012). Web Site:www.leswicks.tripod.com  
 
Oleg Woolf Oleg Woolf was born in 1954 in Moldova. In the 1970s, he traveled extensively with geophysical expeditions of the Moscow Institute of Physics of the Earth to the Ural Mountains, Pamir, Altai, and the Caucasus. In 1989, he emigrated to the United States where he lived until his death in 2011. Oleg Woolf authored two books: Bessarabian Stamp ( Stosvet Press, 2009 ) and We Will See Sosnov in Spring (Stosvet Press, 2010) . His short stories, essays, and poetry have been regularly featured in the leading literary periodicals and anthologies both in Russia and abroad, most recently in World Literature Today. In 2005, Oleg Woolf founded the Stosvet literary project, which ultimately featured under one umbrella such journals asCardinal Points and ??????? ?????, as well as the Compass Translation Award, Union "I" portal, and Stosvet Press.
 
Jeffrey Cyphers Wright Jeffrey Cyphers Wright is best known as a poet. His 12th book, Triple Crown, is out from Spuyten Duyvil. His collages and artworks have been shown at Turtle Point Press Gallery and Tribes Gallery among other venues. In December of 2011 he curated "Occupy Wall Space" at AC Institute in Chelsea. Critical writing has appeared in Artnews, Chelsea Now, Art and Antiques. He reviews regularly for ArtNexus and The Brooklyn Rail. He sponsors monthly parties in the East Village's Dias y Flores Community Garden and hosts readings at La Mama, E.T.C. A long-time publisher, Wright currently produces an art and poetry showcase called Live Mag! www.livemagnyc.com  
 
Matvei Yankelevich Matvei Yankelevich is the author of the poetry collection Alpha Donut (United Artists Books) and the novella-in-fragments Boris by the Sea (Octopus Books), and several chapbooks. He is the translator of Today I Wrote Nothing: The Selected Writings of Daniil Kharms (Overlook/Ardis) and contributed translations to Alexander Vvedensky's An Invitation for Me to Think (NYRB Poets, 2013). He edited a portfolio of Contemporary Russian Poetry for Aufgabe (No. 8, Fall 2009). He is one of the founding editors of Ugly Duckling Presse, where he curates the Eastern European Poets Series. His poem Kargil first appeared in Platform, Yellow Nib, Caravan, Australian Poetry Journal and Ladakh (Tyrone Guthrie Centre / Gallerie).
 
Annie Zaidi Annie Zaidi writes poetry, non-fiction, fiction, and scripts for stage and screen. She is the author of 'Love Stories # 1 to 14', and the co-author of 'The Bad Boy's Guide to the Good Indian Girl'. Her first collection of essays 'Known Turf: Bantering with Bandits and Other True Tales' was shortlisted for the Crossword (non-fiction) book prize, and was translated into Italian as 'I Miei Luoghi'. She writes poetry and plays in both English and Hindi. 'Jaal' and 'So Many Socks' were performed in Mumbai in 2012. Her work has appeared in anthologies like Mumbai Noir; Women Changing India; Journeys Through Rajasthan; 21 Under 40; India Shining, India Changing; and in journals like The Little Magazine, Pratilipi, Out of Print; Caravan and Desilit.  
 
Olga Zilberbourg Olga Zilberbourg is a San Francisco-based writer, editor, and translator. She grew up in St. Petersburg, Russia and moved to the United States at the age of seventeen. Olga's English-language writing has appeared in Narrative Magazine, Santa Monica Review, J Journal, eleven eleven Journal, Mad Hatters' Review, Prick of the Spindle, HTMLGiant, and her translations have been featured in Roger: an Art & Literary Magazine and ezra: an online journal of translation. Olga is a senior associate editor at Narrative Magazine. Links to her work can be found on her website www.zilberbourg.com .
 
America Zapata América Zapata 1987, Was born and lives in Chihuahua City, Chihuahua.
América decided to write when she was 8 years old, thanks to her 3rd grade teacher. That is why every time she writes, she identifies herself with the beauty of being a child even if an adult says the opposite. She started her college education when she was 21 years old, at the Universidad Autónoma de Chihuahua (UACH) pursuing a degree in Spanish Literature.
She was selected by the literary group "Reencuentro" to be part of the "11th Conference of Poets and Writers from Latin America," in Santiago del Estero, Argentina (2012), and was the youngest participant. She has also attended other conferences like "Women Poets from the Northeast," in Ciudad de Jiménez, the "5th Regional Conference of Women Poets" in Huejuquilla," and various editions of the "Encuentro de Mujeres Poetas en el País de las Nubes," Oaxaca (2008, 2009, 2010 and 2012). América has been published in various anthologies, among them: "Hechiceras de la palabra," "Paisajes Interiores," "Al filo del Poema," "La República en la voz de sus poetas," and "Compilación de poemas inéditos. Homenaje póstumo a Rogelio Treviño" (2013).
She was named Exemplary Citizen from Chihuahua for her poetic work, by the newspaper "El Heraldo de Chihuahua." She is a radio announcer in Radio Universidad hosting a program on electronic music.
URL:
www.americasyalfonsinas.blogspot.mx