(b. 1975, Hanoi) won the First Prize at the New Pens Poetry contest in 1996 and was elected Poet of the Year by the readers of Nguoi Lao Dong (Worker) Newspaper in 1999. Her poems have been widely anthologized, translated into French and English, and published in various magazines and newspapers in Vietnam. Her first book of poetry, White Grass, came out in 1999; her second and most recent book, The Night Is Flowing towards the Sky, will appear soon this year. Besides writing poetry, she has also done a translation of Jack London's The Call of the Wild (1995). Ms. Hoang Ly paints and works in installation & performance art as well. She has been teaching young children how to paint since 1997 and has held exhibits of her work and participated in a number of art festivals in Asia as well as the U.S. She will be participating courtesy of the U.S. Department of State.
/ 严力 (painter, poet, fiction writer; China b. 1954, Beijing) was a member of a group of artists known as "The Stars," famous for their daring exhibition of works tinged with abstraction and surrealism; as a writer, he is identified with the Misty Poets, a group that gained notice in the late 70s for their subversion of social realism via personal emotions and private imagery. In 1987, he founded Yi-Hang (First Line) in New York, a quarterly journal that features the works of contemporary Chinese poets as well as translations of American poems. His work has been translated into French, Italian, English, Swedish, Korean and German. He has held many exhibitions and published numerous books, most recently a novel titled Meet with 9.11 (Literature & Art Press, Shanghai, 2002). He is participating courtesy of the Freeman Foundation.
Santiago Vaquera-Vásquez is an unrepentant border crosser, writer, painter, former DJ, and academic who has published stories in international literary journals and newspapers as well as in major anthologies on contemporary literature in the Americas. He has been invited to give readings from his work at universities and conferences in Spain, Mexico, Colombia, and the United States. Currently an assistant professor in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at the University of Iowa, he has also taught at Penn State, Texas A & M University, and has been a visiting scholar at Dartmouth College. In 2006, as a Fulbright Senior Lecturer in Spain, he lectured at universities in Madrid and Salamanca. His academic work on US/Mexico border cultures has been published in journals and anthologies in Mexico and the United States.
Tenzing RIGDOL is a Tibetan artist whose work ranges from painting, sculpture, drawing, collage and digital media to video installations and site-specific performance pieces. He has exhibited extensively throughout the United States, as well as in London, Shanghai, Beijing, Hong Kong, Israel, Tokyo, Madrid and Mumbai; his artwork is held in museums and collections worldwide. He is also the author of the poetry volumes “R”—the Frozen Ink (2008), Anatomy of Nights (2011) and Butterfly’s Wings (2011), published by Tibet Writes. He lives in New Yor. His participation is sponsored by The Shelley & Donald Rubin Foundation.
Teresa PRÄAUER (fiction writer, poet, visual artist; Austria) is the author of the novels Johnny und Jean (2014) and Für den Herrscher aus Übersee [For the Emperor from Overseas], which received the Aspekte prize for best German-language prose debut of 2012, as well as of a book of poetry postcards entitled [Pigeons’ Letters] (2009). In 2015 she received a Droste and a Hölderlin promotion award, and was shortlisted for the Leipzig Book Fair Prize. She regularly publishes on the subjects of poetry, theatre, pop culture and fine arts. Her participation is made possible by the Max Kade Foundation.
CHEN Ko Hua 陳克華 (poet, fiction writer, painter; Taiwan) studied at Taipei Medical University and Harvard Medical School; he now practices as an ophthalmologist at the Taipei Veterans’ General Hospital. He is the author of more than twenty volumes of poetry; his collection [Tears of Ignorance] was recently translated into Japanese. His work often addresses LGBTQ issues. His participation is made possible by the Taiwan Ministry of Culture.
Mortada GZAR مرتضى كزار (novelist, filmmaker, visual artist; Iraq) has an engineering degree from the University of Baghdad. The films he wrote, directed, and shot have been featured in international festivals; his animated “Language” won the Doha Film Award. He has three novels: [Broom of Paradise] (2008), [Sayyid Asghar Akbar] (2013), and [My Beautiful Cult] (2016), and is a regular contributor to the Lebanese newspaper al-Safir al-Arabiandis. He participates courtesy of the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs at the U.S. Department of State.
Mara GENSCHEL (poet; Germany) published her first book of poems, Tonbrand Schlaf, in 2008. She now works on projects involving visual and aural aspects of poetry, publishes book art, and collaborates with performance artists. Her participation is made possible by the Max Kade Foundation.
Maung DAY (poet, artist, translator; Myanmar) has published six poetry books in Burmese and one in English. His poetry has appeared in International Poetry Review, Guernica, The Wolf, The Awl and elsewhere. He translates widely between English and Burmese; his visual work and poetry are exhibited and curated internationally. He participates courtesy of the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs at the U.S. Department of State.
Kinga TÓTH (poet, translator, illustrator, songwriter, performer; Hungary) has published six poetry books, all self-illustrated. Her visual poetry has been exhibited widely; she is the lead singer of the experimental band Tóth Kína Hegyfalu and is working on the visual/sound/poetry projects X and [Moonlight Faces], for which she received the 2017 Hazai Attila award. Ms. Tóth participates courtesy of the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs at the U.S. Department of State.
YAN Chung-hsien 顏忠賢 (fiction writer, poet, essayist, art critic; Taiwan) is also a curator, designer, and director, dedicated to a cross-disciplinary approach that integrates the verbal with the visual, and the traditional with the avant-garde. His 24 publications have won him a Taiwan Gold Book novel award, a Taipei Literature Award, and an Asia Weekly Book Award. He is professor of architecture at Shih Chen University in Taipei. His participation is made possible by Taiwan’s Ministry of Culture.
Umar TIMOL (poet, fiction writer, visual artist; Mauritius) is the author of four poetry volumes, two novels, and two comic books; his poetry collection 52 Fragments pour l’aimée [52 Fragments for the Beloved] (2016) received the Poetry Prize at the Moldova Poetry Festival. Timol is a teacher, photographer, founding member of the mixed-genre journal Point Barre, and a frequent presence at poetry festivals. His participation is made possible by the Bureau of Education and Cultural Affairs of the U.S. Department of State.
CHAN Lai-kuen 陳麗娟 (poetry, essays; Hong Kong), whose blog handle is “Dead Cat,” is a poet, a public speaker, and teacher. Her three books include [There Were Cats Singing], the winner of the Recommendation Prize at the 11th Hong Kong Biennial Awards for Chinese Literature, a prose collection, and a bilingual Chinese-English volume of poetry. Chan’s work has been translated and published internationally. She participates courtesy of the Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation.
NAGAE Yūki 永方佑樹 (poet, performance artist; Japan) received the 2012 Poetry and Thought Newcomer’s Award; her 2019 poetry collection Fuzai toshi [Absentee Cities] was awarded the Rekitei Prize. Her most recent project is GeoPossession, in which 3D audio recordings of writers reading from their work in specific locations around Tokyo are made available to listeners at those locations. She has performed at the Saint-Remi Museum in Reims, France, and across Japan, and is a lecturer at Nagoya University of the Arts. Her participation is made possible by the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs at the U.S. Department of State.
Jamie Marina LAU 劉劍冰 (fiction, poetry, performance; Australia) has published Pink Mountain on Locust Island (2018) and Gunk Baby (2021), which garnered her a number of awards; her stories, nonfiction and poetry have appeared in Meanjin, Cordite Poetry Review, Voiceworks and elsewhere. She also works with digital arts and music/sound composition. Her residency is supported by the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs at the U.S. Department of State.
Yashika GRAHAM (poetry, fiction, nonfiction, visual artist; Jamaica), the winner of the 2019 Mervyn Morris Prize for Poetry, has also received a Centrum Writer’s Residency and read at literary festivals including Dodge Poetry (USA), Bristol (UK), the World Festival of Poetry (Venezuela) and Port Townsend (USA). Her poetry, prose, and literary criticism have been published internationally; her debut collection Some of Us Can Go Back Home is forthcoming from Blouse & Skirt Books. She participates courtesy a grant from the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs at the U.S. Department of State.
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