Deborah Paredez is the author of the poetry collection This Side of Skin and the critical study Selenidad: Selena, Latinos, and the Performance of Memory. She is an Associate Professor at Columbia University and cofounder of CantoMundo, a national organization for Latina/o poets.

Maxine Hong Kingston writes and teaches fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. She's received a National Book Critics Circle Award, two National Book Awards, and a Writers for Writers Award. She has taught for fifty years, including twenty years at a workshop for vets, which resulted in Veterans of War, Veterans of Peace.

Marilyn Chin's award-winning poems and tales have become Asian American classics and are taught all over the world. Her latest book—A Portrait of the Self as Nation: New and Selected Poems—celebrates thirty years of activist writing. She serves as a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets.

Carmen Giménez Smith, Publisher of Noemi Press, is Professor of English at Virginia Tech. Most recently, she is author of Cruel Futures and Be Recorder. Her last poetry collection, Milk and Filth, was a finalist for the NBCC Award.