Sandra Cisneros is a poet, short-story writer, novelist, and essayist. Her awards include the National Medal of Arts, MacArthur and Ford Foundation fellowships, and the PEN/Nabokov Award for Achievement in International Literature. Her novel The House on Mango Street has been translated into more than twenty languages. Cisneros is a dual citizen of the United States and Mexico.

Liliana Valenzuela is the acclaimed Spanish-language translator of works by Sandra Cisneros, Julia Alvarez, Denise Chávez, and many other writers. As a poet, she is the author of Codex of Journeys: Bendito Camino and is an inaugural fellow of CantoMando. An adoptive Tejana, Valenzuela was born and raised in Mexico City and now lives and works in Austin, Texas.