Jesse Cardona, a veteran teacher of Texas schools and currently an English teacher at Incarnate Word H. S., has received several awards as a creative writing teacher, including the Imagineer Award, the Trinity University Prize for Teaching Excellence and the Ford Salute in the Arts Award.

His poetry book, Pan Dulce, was published in 1998 by Chili Verde Press, and his poetry has been published in literary journals and anthologies, most recently in Literary San Antonio. He twice won a Gemini Ink “Voz de San Antonio Spoken Word Champion Award,” and in 216 his “Bato Con Khakis” poem was selected for performance at the New York City Symphony Space .

Rooted in San Antonio, Marisol Cortez writes across genre about place and power for all the other borderwalking weirdos out there. She is co-editor of Deceleration, an online journal of environmental justice, and author of the award-winning South Texas cli-fi novel Luz at Midnight (FlowerSong Press 2020) and I Call on the Earth (Double Drop Press 2019), a chapbook of documentary poetry about the displacement of Mission Trails Mobile Home Community.

Her latest book is The Bird Church (forthcoming in 2025 from Finishing Line Press), which lovingly dwells on the urban microfauna and flora–grackles, koi, feral parrots, decorative citrus–which remind us of what persists amid the scars of inland refineries and interstate highways. Other poems and prose have appeared in Mutha Magazine, About Place Journal, Orion, Vice Canada, Caigibi, Metafore Magazine, Outsider Poetry, Voices de la Luna, and La Voz de Esperanza, among other anthologies and journals. For more on current projects, visit mcortez.net.

Dr. Chara Booker is a published poet with work in journals including Connective Tissue, Jasper’s Folly and in anthologies including, Boundles, 2022 and Easing the Edges: a collection of everyday miracles. She is also a physical therapist by day, working in non-profit healthcare and has just opened a new practice in Cedar Park, TX. She lives in San Antonio, TX where she was adopted by a tuxedo cat, Sylvie. Looking for the poetry from events in our lives, family connections and seeing the poetry in the rhythms of our days are enormous inspirations for Chara’s work.

Anthony “The Poet” Flores is a 3-time San Antonio Grand Slam Poetry Champion & has represented our city in competition on six different occasions at the National Poetry Slam. He has performed his work all over the United States, from local schools & community centers to H.B.O.’s Def Poetry Jam to the famous Lincoln Center in New York City. He is a co-founder of Fresh Ink Under-21 Youth Poetry Slam, the only on-going poetry slam & open-Mic for teenagers in San Antonio, & he is also a judge for S.A.’s La Voz City-Wide Spoken Word Competition.

Eduardo C. Garza has presented Jazz poetry, also known as spoken word, beginning in 1977 in Austin, Corpus Christi, Phoenix, Albuquerque, and San Antonio, Texas. Although it has had other names, such as Teatro Poecia, Jazz Poet Society, The Jazz Poets of San Antonio continue to provide a stage for poets/musicians/artists to express themselves through poetry and music.

Jim LaVilla-Havelin is an educator, arts administrator, community arts advocate, consultant, critic and poet. His fifth book of poems, WEST, POEMS OF A PLACE was just published by Wings Press. LaVilla-Havelin is the Coordinator for National Poetry Month in San Antonio.

LaVilla-Havelin retired in 2013 after seventeen years as the Director of the Young Artist Programs at the Southwest School of Art, to write, teach, and consult. He teaches creative writing to senior citizens in Bihl Haus Cultural Arts’ GO Arts Program, and incarcerated youth at the Cyndi Taylor Krier Juvenile Correctional Treatment Center for Gemini Ink’s Partner Program.

He lives in Lytle, Texas (the “place” of “poems of a place”) with his wife, artist Lucia LaVilla-Havelin

Amalia Ortiz is an actor, playwright, and performance poet. She was awarded the 2020 American Book Award for Oral Literature and appeared on three seasons of Russell Simmons Presents Def Poetry on HBO. NBC Latino named her book of poetry, Rant. Chant. Chisme. one of “10 Great Latino Books of 2015,” It was also awarded the 2015 Writers’ League of Texas Poetry Discovery Prize.

She was chosen to speak at TEDx McAllen 2015, was awarded the 2018 NALAC Fund for the Arts Grant to film videos for her book The Canción Cannibal Cabaret & Other Songs, and won a 2021 City of San Antonio Individual Artist Grant to create poetry inspired by women in punk. Amalia received her MFA in Creative Writing from The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. She is Currently the Theatre Arts Director at SaySi, a San Antonio Creative Youth Development Organization.

The 2018-2020 Poet Laureate of San Antonio, Octavio Quintanilla’s creative prowess has taken him far beyond the written word, earning him acclaim in various fields of expression. His profound and hypnotic “Frontextos” (Visual Poems) encapsulate Quintanilla’s poetic essence in a visual, multi-media format, providing a direct line to viewers’ hearts and minds.

Quintanilla is the Author of the poetry collection, If I Go Missing (Slough Press, 2014), and currently teaches Literature and Creative Writing at OLLU.

Andrea “Vocab” Sanderson’s work is as prolific as it is inspired, a combination which allowed her to rise as San Antonio Poet Laureate from 2020-2023. The winner of Mega Corazon’s 2023 Gregg Barrios Precious Words Prize, Sanderson has worked tirelessly to uplift the poetry community throughout San Antonio, teaching workshops, mentoring, and hosting her own events to platform fellow artists. She is an Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellow. Her work was recently published in Texas, Being: A State Of Poems; Trinity University Press 2024, and her debut book She Lives In Music was published on Flower Song Press in 2020.

ire’ne lara silva, the 2023 Texas State Poet Laureate, is the author of five poetry collections, furia, Blood Sugar Canto, CUICACALLI/House of Song, FirstPoems, and the eaters of flowers, two chapbooks, Enduring Azucares and Hibiscus Tacos, and a short story collection, flesh to bone, which won the Premio Aztlán.

ire’ne is the recipient of a 2021 Tasajillo Writers Grant, a 2017 NALAC Fund for the Arts Grant, the final Alfredo Cisneros del Moral Award, and was the Fiction Finalist for AROHO’s 2013 Gift of Freedom Award. Most recently, ire’ne was awarded the 2021 Texas Institute of Letters Shrake Award for Best Short Nonfiction. ire’ne is currently a Writer at Large for Texas Highways Magazine. Her first comic book, VENDAVAL, will be released by the Chispa Imprint of Scout Comics in April 2024.

Dr. Carmen Tafolla, the first City Poet Laureate of San Antonio and the 2015 State Poet Laureate of Texas, is a native of the West Side barrios of San Antonio.

Called by Rigoberto Gonzalez “the Zora Neale Hurston of the Chicano community”, Tafolla is the author of more than thirty books and recipient of numerous awards including the Americas Award, two Tomas Rivera Book Awards, three ALA Notable Books, five International Latino Book Awards, and the Art of Peace Award, for work which contributes to peace, justice, and human understanding.

She has performed her one-woman dramatic show widely in Europe, Mexico, Canada, the U.S. and New Zealand. She is currently Professor of Transformative Children’s Literature at the University of Texas at San Antonio, and President of the Texas Institute of Letters.

Tilton is an artist, wife, and mother of two- who is also a spoken word poet and social advocate from the city of San Antonio. The proud winner of the 2022 Greg Barrios Precious words prize, she has also been awarded co-slam champion representing San Antonio at the National Poetry Slam for two consecutive years. Along with speaking various social events such as the San Antonio Woman’s March, she has held several workshops for youth in the community. Tilton also makes art, music, and content online.

Born in Mexico, Natalia Treviño is the author of VirginX and Lavando La Dirty Laundry, She is a member of the Texas Institute of Letters and the Macondo Foundation. She is the Chair of Voices de La Luna and works as a professor at Northwest Vista College. Her awards include the Alfredo Cisneros de Moral Award, the Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Prize, and the Menada Literary Award from Macedonia. Her poetry appears in a variety of journals including Bordersenses, Acentos Review, Plume, and Xóchitl Cuicatl: Floricanto Cien años de poesía chicana/Latinx among others. Her prose appears in Mirrors Beneath the Earth: Short Fiction by Chicano Writers, and most recently in Latinx Poetics: Essays on the Art of Poetry. Her third book of poetry, Socorro, is forthcoming.

Known as the “Taco-Poet of Texas,” Eddie Vega is a son of the Rio Grande Valley whose work explores Mexican-American identity and culture. A literary powerhouse, his creations have been absorbed into San Antonio’s urban landscape with poems displayed on VIA Buses, downtown buildings, and along San Pedro Creek.

His books include: Chicharra Chorus, Asina is How We Talk, and the most recent, Somos Nopales. Vega is the 7th San Antonio Poet Laureate, serving 2024-2027.

Joyous Windrider Jiménez is an improv & performance poet, teatrista, mixed-media visual artist and video creator who blends performance and visual elements into stories that articulate her own journey of healing and emotional literacy

Gemini Ink’s Teaching Artist of the Year, her students have been national recipients of the Scholastic Arts & Writing awards, and their performances have been featured in venues across Texas.

Her art and writing grapples with topics such as home, identity, trauma, mental health, and emotional healing

Nate Zen is an artist from San Antonio Texas. Husband, Father, Poet, Nate is a multidisciplinary artist who has been active in the community for over a decade. He Co-founded San Antonio’s only youth slam, Fresh Ink. National recognized spoken word poet

2016 co-slam champ, Nate holds poetry workshops regularly. He also is a painter, muralist sculptor and balloon artist who is always looking for new ways to express himself and inspire others to do the same.