Ana Castillo is a celebrated poet, novelist, short story writer, and essayist.  Castillo was born and raised in Chicago.   Long considered one of the leading voices to emerge from the Chicana experience, Castillo is a prolific author whose work has been critically acclaimed and widely anthologized in the United States and abroad.

Castillo’s books include the novel, The Mixquiahuala Letters (Bilingual Review Press, 1986; Doubleday, 1992), for which she received the Before Columbia Foundation’s American Book Award in 1987. 

She published Peel My Love Like an Onion (Doubleday) in 1999 and a children’s book My Daughter, My Son, The Eagle, The Dove. In 2005 she published a dramatic work Psst…I have something to tell you, mi amor (Wings Press) and this year The Guardians was published by Random House.

A noted columnist and essayist, she has written for newspapers and magazines across the country on various topics as far ranging as the murder of Tejano singer, Selena; gender roles in the farmworkers movement (Los Angeles Times, 4/20/97); being a mother (Salon, 4/12/99); and feministas turning 50 (oxygen.com).

As a poet, Castillo is the author of several works, including the chapbooks Otro Canto (1977) and The Invitation (1979).  These were followed by several volumes of poetry which include  Women Are Not Roses (Arte Publico, 1984), and My Father Was a Toltec (West End Press, 1988). 

Her other books include the novel So Far From God (Norton, 1993), which earned her both the Carl Sandburg Literary Award in Fiction of 1993 and the Mountains and Plains Bookseller Award of 1994, and a work of non-fiction, Massacre of the Dreamers: Reflections on Mexican-Indian Women in the United States 500 Years After the Conquest (University of New Mexico, 1992).

Castillo, along with Norma Alarcon and others, co-founded the literary magazine Third Woman.  She has since been a contributing editor to Third Woman and Humanizarte magazines.  Castillo’s speaking engagements are extensive and have been internationally sponsored, including the Sorbonne University (1985-1986), and a Germany reading tour (1987) sponsored by the German Association of Americanists.

Castillo earned a B.A. from Northeastern Illinois University in 1975 and later an M.A. degree in Latin American and Caribbean Studies in the Social Science Division at the University of Chicago.

From 1989 to 1990 Castillo was a Dissertation Fellow in the Chicano Studies Department at the University of California, Santa Barbara.  It was there that she continued her work on a new collection of poetry, I Ask the Impossible (Anchor Books, 2001) and her collection of essays Massacre of the Dreamers. 

From 1989 to 1994, she taught fiction writing and Latina literature at several colleges, including the University of New Mexico, Mills College of Oakland, CA, and Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, MA. 

Supported partly by a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts in this period, Castillo finished So Far from God in 1993.  It has been also published in Great Britain, Germany, and elsewhere.  Castillo received a Ph.D. in American Studies from the University of Bremen, Germany, in 1991.  In 1995, Castillo won a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts for creative writing (fiction).

Until recently Ana Castillo  lived in Chicago with her son.  In June 2006 she relocated to her new home in  New Mexico. In addition to the works cited above, She has been profiled and interviewed on National Public Radio and the History Channel, and has been featured along with Sandra Cisneros and Denise Chavez in Vanity Fair (9/94) and Hispanic (3/95).

Her awards include the Carl Sandburg Award, a Mountains and Plains Booksellers Award, and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts in fiction and poetry. In 1998 she was awarded the Sor Juana Achievement Award by the Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum in Chicago. In 2006 she was winner of the Independent Publisher Story Teller of the Year Award. (photo Robert A. Molina)

Cheryl Klein is the author of Lilac Mines (Manic D Press, 2009) and The Commuters, which won City Works Press’ Ben Reitman Award and was published in 2006. Her fiction has appeared in The Normal School, Other, and the anthologies Jane’s Stories III (Jane’s Stories Press) and Hunger and Thirst (City Works Press). She directs the California office of Poets & Writers, Inc., and previously co-edited the online queer fiction magazine Blithe House Quarterly. She is an alumna of UCLA and CalArts, and lives in Los Angeles. She blogs about art, life and carbohydrates at breadandbread.blogspot.com.

Diane Ackerman was born in Waukegan, Illinois. She received an M.A., M.F.A. and Ph.D. from Cornell University. Her works of nonfiction include, most recently,The Zookeeper's Wife, narrative nonfiction about one of the most successful hideouts of World War II, a tale of people, animals, and subversive acts of compassion; An Alchemy of Mind, a poetics of the brain based on the latest neuroscience; Cultivating Delight: A Natural History of My Garden; Deep Play, which considers play, creativity, and our need for transcendence; A Slender Thread, about her work as a crisisline counselor; The Rarest of the Rare and The Moon by Whale Light, in which she explores the plight and fascination of endangered animals; A Natural History of Love; On Extended Wings, her memoir of flying; and the bestseller A Natural History of the Senses.
Her poetry has been published in leading literary journals, and in the books Origami Bridges: Poems of Psychoanalysis and Fire; I Praise My Destroyer; Jaguar of Sweet Laughter: New and Selected Poems; Lady Faustus; Reverse Thunder: A Dramatic Poem; Wife of Light; The Planets: A Cosmic Pastoral. She also writes nature books for children: Animal Sense; Monk Seal Hideaway; and Bats: Shadows in the Night.
Ms. Ackerman has received many prizes and awards, including a D. Litt. from Kenyon College, a Guggenheim Fellowship, Orion Book Award, John Burroughs Nature Award, and the Lavan Poetry Prize, as well as being honored as a Literary Lion by the New York Public Library. She also has the rare distinction of having a molecule named after her --dianeackerone. She has taught at a variety of universities, including Columbia, the University of Richmond, and Cornell. Her essays about nature and human nature have appeared in The New York Times, Smithsonian, Parade, The New Yorker, National Geographic, and many other journals, where they have been the subject of much praise. She hosted a five-hour PBS television series inspired by A Natural History of the Senses. (courtesy dianeackerman.com)

Douglas Kearney is an L.A.-based poet, performer, teacher, and recipient of the prestigious Whiting Writers’ Award for emerging authors. The honor carries a $50,000 prize.
Kearney’s poetry has appeared in various journals, including Callaloo, Gulf Coast, nocturnes and jubilat; and anthologies, including Bum Rush the Page, Role Call, the award-winning Dark Matter: Reading the Bones, and the upcoming Saints of Hysteria.
He has written/performed for audio recordings and television and has been a featured performer across the country, including the New York Public Theater, Minneapolis’ Orpheum, and L.A.’s World Stage. Kearney has received commissions from the Weisman Art Museum and the Studio Museum in Harlem to create poetry in response to art installations.
The writer has exhibited InJury, a series combining poetry and image at the 2005 Afro-Geek Conference at UC Santa Barbara. He has also designed a number of poetry books ranging from chapbooks to anthologies.
Kearney received an MFA from CalArts, where he teaches African American Studies/Poetics. In 2007, he was named a notable New American Poet by the Poetry Society of America. His first full-length collection, Fear, Some will be available at his reading and book signing at City College.

Visit Douglas Kearney's Web site

Francisco Bustos lives in Playas de Tijuana, Baja California, and in Chula Vista, California where he teaches English Composition at Southwestern College. He mostly writes about border culture, music, foods and people. In his free time, he enjoys spending time with his wife Nirvana, daughter Quetzalli, and son Emiliano, playing guitar with his father-in-law, and visiting his parents, brother and sisters. He grew up on both sides of the Tijuana/San Ysidro Border, moving every couple of years depending on family budget and situation.  Bustos is a contributor to Sunshine/Noir: Writing from San Diego and Tijuana (San Diego City Works Press)

Janet M. Gastil, co-author of Follow the Sun, writes, plays the violin, teaches, and enjoys hiking and exploring in the mountains of San Diego County, as well as traveling in Mexico and in distant lands not often visited by Americans. Janet also served as a Board of Education member for La Mesa-Spring Valley, 1977-1990.

José Lozano was born in 1959 in Los Angeles. In 1960, he moved with his mother to her birthplace of Juárez, México. There, he found many of the cultural touchstones that continue to influence his work today:  bad Mexican cinema, fotonovelas, ghost stories, comic books, and musical genres such as bolero and ranchera. He returned to Southern California in 1967 where he attended Belvedere Elementary School in East Los Angeles, where his teachers encouraged him to draw and paint. He began creating revealing, yet not always flattering, works about his neighborhood and its residents--demonstration parties, quinceañeras, weddings, and baby showers. Later, he received his Bachelor of Fine Arts and Master of Fine Arts degrees from California State University at Fullerton.

Lozano prefers to work in a series and focuses on particular themes and topics, such as Mexican wrestlers, paper dolls, Mexican movie imagery, clowns, lotería, and figures in midair. Most of his work is referred to as "morose," a trait of many artists that he prefers.

Marilyn Chin was born in Hong Kong and raised in Portland, Oregon. Her books have become Asian American classics and are taught in classrooms internationally. She is the author of Revenge of the Mooncake Vixen (W.W. Norton & Co., 2009), Rhapsody in Plain Yellow (W.W. Norton & Co., 2002), The Phoenix Gone, The Terrace Empty (1994), and Dwarf Bamboo (1987).

Chin has won numerous awards for her poetry, including ones from the Radcliffe Institute at Harvard, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts. She has received a Stegner Fellowship, the PEN/Josephine Miles Award, four Pushcart Prizes, the Paterson Prize, a Fulbright Fellowship to Taiwan, as well as residencies at Yaddo, the MacDowell Colony, the Lannan Residency, and the Djerassi Foundation.

Her work has been featured in a variety of anthologies, including The Norton Anthology of Modern and Contemporary Poetry, The Norton Introduction to Poetry, The Oxford Anthology of Modern American Poetry, Unsettling America, The Open Boat, and The Best American Poetry of l996. She was featured in Bill Moyers’ PBS series The Language of Life.

She has read and taught workshops all over the world. Recently, she taught at the Iowa Writer’s Workshop and was guest poet at universities in Singapore, Hong Kong, Manchester, Sydney and Berlin and elsewhere. In addition to writing poetry, she has translated poems by the modern Chinese poet Ai Qing and co-translated poems by the Japanese poet Gozo Yoshimasu. Presently, she is writing a book of poetic tales. She co-directs the MFA program at San Diego State University.

Born and raised in East Los Angeles, California, Olga García Echeverría has shared her cucaracha-obsessed-Spanglish poesía throughout the Southwest, in Nueva York, Minneapolis, North Carolina, Mexico City, Cuba, and France.

Her first book, Falling Angels: Cuentos y Poemas, was published by Calaca Press and Chibcha Press in 2008.

Grammy nominated vocalist, composer, and arranger Perla Batalla was born in Los Angeles, CA. Her father was a musician and owned a popular Spanish language record store. She first gained international attention as a backup singer for Leonard Cohen who later encouraged Perla to embark on a solo career.

Perla released her debut Perla Batalla on the Warner/Discovery label in 1994. Not surprisingly, the critics loved it, calling her singing “sublime” and her talent “stunning”. Like many original artists, Perla opted to go independent, releasing her second album, Mestiza in 1998 on her own Mechuda Music label. An immediate favorite on Public Radio shows throughout the U.S. Mestiza was selected as Best Independent Release of the Year by Amazon.com.

Heaven and Earth followed in 2000, along with a nod to Perla as Amazon’s Emerging Artist of the Year. Both Mestiza and Heaven and Earth celebrate a powerful civilization born from the explosive marriage of separate worlds. A resplendent, vibrant culture nourished by mysticism, imagery, magic and myth.

Perla’s eagerly awaited follow-up to the Mestiza song cycle was an innovative undertaking of contagious rhythm and pure joy. Named for her parents record shop, the Discoteca Batalla project, was a compilation of original compositions interspersed with traditional Spanish language classics arranged to reflect Perla’s rich bicultural personal and musical heritage. Perla has taken the timeless songs heard growing up and molded their rhythmic and melodic forms to create a stunning cross-pollination of trend and tradition. Discoteca Batalla has appeared on “best of” lists throughout the country.

Perla is excited about her tribute to Leonard Cohen titled Bird on the Wire. The album includes special guests such as David Hidalgo (of Los Lobos), Bill Gable, Vinnie Coliauta, Greg Leisz, Julie Christensen and many other fine musicians.

Her album, What I did on my Summer Vacation by Perla Batalla, is a collection of songs recorded after journeying to Buenos Aires to meet her mother's side of the family for the first time ever.

Photo courtesy Sherry Barnett

Reyna Grande is the author of the critically-acclaimed novel, Across a Hundred Mountains, winner of a 2007 American Book Award and the 2006 El Premio Aztlan Literary Award. She is a sought-after speaker at high schools, colleges, and universities throughout the nation. She is currently at work on a memoir. Visit her website at www.reynagrande.com.

After enjoying a successful stand-up comedy career, sharing the stage with such greats as Chris Rock, Jamie Foxx, and Paul Mooney, Terrence Stubbs migrated to San Diego, CA to follow his true calling and study film. In 1999, while attending San Diego City College, Terrence worked for the San Diego Film Commission as a location scout and production assistant on several productions including the Steven Soderbergh film Traffic. In 2005 Terrence organized the Cal State Long Beach Latin American Film Festival, working as a liaison between distributors, securing films for screenings and coordinating marketing and promotions.  Stubbs also worked as a producer at Cal State Long Beach where he wrote, produced and edited segments for College Beat TV.

He has an Associate of Arts in Radio, Television, Video & Film from San Diego City College, a Bachelor of Arts in Film and Electronic Media from California State University at Long Beach, and a MFA in Digital Cinema from National University. Terrence is the creator and founder of Drapetomania FilmWorks, an independent film and video production company based in Los Angeles, CA. Nommogeneity is his first documentary film.

William Powers hails from Long Island, NY and has worked for over a decade in development aid and conservation in Latin America, Africa, Washington, D.C., and Native North America. A 2004-2005 recipient of the Open Door Foundation for non-fiction, he is the author of the Liberia memoir Blue Clay People and the Bolivian memoir Whispering in the Giant's Ear.

From 2002 to 2004 he managed the community components of a project in the Bolivian Amazon that won a 2003 prize for environmental innovation from Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government.

His essays and commentaries on global issues have appeared in the New York Times and the International Herald Tribune, and on National Public Radio. Mr. Powers has worked at the World Bank, and holds international relations degrees from Brown University and Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service.

Read Bill’s New York Times and other essays, and hear his interviews. Click here.

Award winning author and dynamic public speaker, Ying is the author of many children's books, cookbooks and a novel. Ying has been featured on many national television programs and she has been profiled in national magazines and newspapers.

Ying has visited schools throughout the US and abroad, sharing with students her journey as a writer, how her life in China inspired her writing, and the challenges of writing in her second language.

Ying is the spokesperson for Nestle Maggi and Celestial Seasonings and a regular contributor to the national magazines Cooking Light, Ski, EatingWell, Self, Men's Health, and Delicious Living and Diablo. She was the food editor for Body & Soul, a Martha Stewart magazine that focuses on healthy living.

Ying has lectured on a variety of subjects at writer's conferences and universities, aboard cruise ships, on television and radio programs, and for numerous other organizations.

Courtesy http://www.yingc.com