Dylan Brennan
Poet, essayist, researcher and translator
Dividing his time between Mexico and Ireland, Dylan Brennan writes poetry and prose. He is the author of two poetry collections: Blood Oranges (The Dreadful
Press, 2014) and Let the Dead (Banshee Press, 2023). Let the Dead was longlisted for the Laurel Prize and Blood Oranges was runner-up in the Patrick Kavanagh Award. He is a recipient of the Ireland Chair of Poetry Bursary award and the Aodh Ruadh Ó Domhnaill Poetry Exchange. In 2022 he won the inaugural Drumshanbo Written Word Weekend Poetry Film Award for ‘Four Attempts at Making a Human’, a poetry film in collaboration with Jonathan Brennan. In 2025 he co-produced Amergin, a short film, also in collaboration with Jonathan Brennan. He has read at literary festivals in Colombia, Nicaragua, Mexico, Italy, Ireland and USA and has twice been recipient of a Culture Ireland Travel Grant.
His work has been translated into Spanish, Italian, Galician and Greek. As an academic, Brennan received a doctorate from University College Cork for his work on Mexican writer and photographer Juan Rulfo. He wrote the prologue for El Llano in flames (Structo Press, 2019), Stephen Beechinor’s new translation of Rulfo’s first book. While working on his thesis he was awarded a Daniel Cosío Villegas scholarship from the Mexican government and the Beca San Patricio from Grupo Modelo. His academic research culminated in the publication of Rethinking Juan Rulfo’s Creative World: Prose, Photography, Film (Legenda Books, 2016), a book he co-edited with Prof. Nuala Finnegan. He currently sits on the board of the Centre for Mexican Studies at University College Cork.
Ave Barrera
Author and Editor
She studied a Bachelor’s degree in Hispanic Literature at the University of Guadalajara (UdeG) and a Master’s degree in Modern Portuguese Literature at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). She is a writer, editor, fiction professor, and translator from English to Spanish and from Portuguese to Spanish. Her first novel, Puertas demasiado pequeñas (The Forgery), written with support from Fonca (The National Endowment for Culture and Arts), won the Sergio Galindo Prize from the Universidad Veracruzana in 2013 and was published by Editorial Laguna Libros (for Colombia) in 2015 and Editorial Alianza (for Spain and Latin America) in 2016. The artist’s book 21,000 Princesas, co-authored with Lola Horner, won first place in the 2015 Lía International Artist’s Book Competition.
Her most recent novel, Restauración, won the Lipp la Brasserie Prize in 2018 and was published by Editorial Paraíso Perdido that same year. Restauración is about to be published in Spain by Editorial Contraseña, and is being translated into English by Charco Press. She is the author of the children’s novel Una noche en el laberinto (2014), published by Editorial Edebé, with two reprints. Her book Nezahualcóyotl, coyote hambrientp (2015) was selected by SEP (Department of Public Education) to be part of the Classroom Libraries program in 2017 and 2018. She is also the author of the picture book Tláloc, piedra de agua (2016).
Jazmina Barrera
Author
Jazmina Barrera was born in Mexico City in 1988. She was a fellow at the Foundation for Mexican Letters and at Mexico’s Fonca’s Program for young writers and she’s a member of the SNCA (National System of Art Creators in Mexico). She was a beneficiary of the residencies at Casa Estudio Cien años de Soledad. She has published work in various print and digital media, such as The Paris Review, El Malpensante, Words Without Borders, El País and The New York Times. She has a Master’s Degree in Creative Writing in Spanish from New York University, which she completed with the support of a Fulbright grant. She is the author of four books in
Spanish: Cuerpo extraño, Cuaderno de faros, Linea nigra, the children’s book, Los nombres de los animales, Punto de cruz and La reina de espadas. She has also co-written the books Nuestro plan de fiesta (with Camila Fabbri) and Rituales para la amistad (with Daniela Rea and Elvira Liceaga).
Her books have been published in nine countries and translated to English, Dutch, Italian, Portuguese and French. Her book of essays Cuerpo extraño (Foreign Body) was awarded the Latin American Voices prize by Literal Publishing in 2013. Cuaderno de faros (OnLighthouses) was long listed for the von Rezzori award and chosen for the Indie Next list by Indie Bound. Linea Nigra was a finalist for the National Book Critics Cricle’s Gregg Barrios Book in Translation Prize, the National Book Critics Circle Autobiography Prize, the CANIEM’s Book of the year award and the Amazon Primera Novela (First Novel) Award. Punto de cruz (Cross- Stitch) was a finalist in the Calamo Awards, long-listed for the Republic of Consciousness Prize and short-listed for the Queen Sofía Award. She is editor and co-founder of Ediciones Antílope. She lives in Mexico City.
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