Chosen Tongue Eleonora Balsano

Jesse Lee Kercheval is an award-winning artist, writer, poet, and translator. Her most recent books include the poetry collections, I want to tell you, and Un Pez Dorado no te sirve para nada. Selected poems translated by Ezequiel Zaindenwerg and published in Uruguay by editorial Yaugarù, which also published Jesse's collection of Spanish language poetry,


Extranjera/Stranger. Jesse's other books include America that island off the Coast of France, The Alice Stories, and the memoir Space, all of which won important awards. Jess's translations include poems by Idea Vilariño and Circe Maia. Jess is the Zona Gale Professor Emerita of English at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and the editor of the Wisconsin Poetry Series at the University of Wisconsin Press. Jesse's graphic memoir, French Girl, is forthcoming from Philmau's Press. She currently lives between Madison, Wisconsin and Montevideo, Uruguay. Together, we discuss Jesse's experience of becoming a translingual writer in Spanish, how she discovered her love for Spanish while living in Uruguay, and how it led her to become a translator of Uruguayan poetry. Jesse also talked about the challenges and joys of writing poetry in Spanish, the impact of switching language on a writer's voice, and the reception of her work in a second language.

Jenny Liao is a Chinese -American writer born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. She is the author of two children's books, Everyone Loves Lunchtime but Zia and Everyone Loves Career Day but Zia. Jenny's writing has been featured in The New Yorker and Bon Appetit.

Jenny currently lives in Los Angeles with her husband and two Calico cats, Donald and Bigné, and you can find her on Instagram and Twitter, @jaleao, or on her website, jaleao.com. We discussed how Jenny's been working to regain fluency in her mother tongue, Cantonese, through classes and practicing with a mother, how challenging it is to translate certain concepts from one tongue to the other, and how you can lose a mother tongue but never completely grieve its loss. 

Avra Margariti is a queer author, Greek sea monster and Rhysling-nominated poet with the fondness for the dark and the darling. Avra's work haunts publications such as Strange Horizons, The Deadlands, F &SF, Podcastle, Asimov's, Vastarien and Reckoning. You can find Avra on Twitter @AvraMargariti. Together we discussed Avra's early publishing experience and the inspiration she found in Greek authors writing in English. Avra also expressed her concern about the retelling of Greek mythology in Anglo -Saxon literature and the commodification of Greek myths for branding purposes. Finally, Avra highlighted the importance of preserving the Greek vibe and folklore in writing, and she offered advice for writers starting to write in a second language.

Alina Stefanescu was born in Romania and lives in Birmingham, Alabama. Alina is the author of several publications, including a creative nonfiction chapbook, Ribald (Bull City Press Inch Series, Nov. 2020) and Dor, which won the Wandering Aengus Press Prize (September, 2021). Her debut fiction collection, Every Mask I Tried On, won the Brighthorse Books Prize (April 2018). Alina's poems, essays, and fiction can be found in Prairie Schooner, North American Review, World Literature Today, Pleiades, Poetry, BOMB, Crab Creek Review, and others. She serves as poetry editor for several journals, reviewer and critic for others, and Co-Director of PEN America's Birmingham Chapter. She is currently working on a novel-like creature. More online at www.alinastefanescuwriter.com. We discussed how Alina started writing creatively to bridge the gap between her Romanian and American identities, the self-censorship she feels as an immigrant writer and how her voice changes when switching between Romanian and English. 

Ana Maria Caballero is a Colombian-American literary artist whose work explores how biology delimits societal and cultural rites, ripping the veil off romanticized motherhood and questioning notions that package sacrifice as a virtue. She's the recipient of the Beverly International Prize, Colombia’s José Manuel Arango National Poetry Prize, the Steel Toe Books Poetry Prize, a Future Arts Writer Award, a Sevens Foundation Grant and has been a finalist for numerous other literary and arts prizes. We discussed how her themes and writing style have evolved with each language, the growing presence of digital and crypto poetry, and her use of AI in poetry and art, highlighting the different interpretations of prose and poetry, in Spanish and English. 
Caballero is the author of Mammal (forthcoming via Steel Tool Books, 2024); Cortadas (forthcoming from S/W Ediciones, 2025); A Petit Mal (Black Spring Press, 2023); Tryst (Alexandria Publishing, 2022); mid-life (Finishing Line Press, 2016); Reverse Commute (Silver Birch Press, 2014); Entre domingo y domingo (Valparaíso Ediciones, 2023 and 2014).  
She lives in Madrid with her husband and children. 
 

Alison Mooney is a poet, storyteller and dancer who has lived in France, the US, Ireland, Germany, and now lives in Brussels.  For many years she worked across Europe in the private sector, before joining the European Parliament 10 years ago. In 2020, Alison won the Cicero Speechwriting Award, from the US Professional Speechwriters Association, for a poetic motivational speech. In 2022, she was appointed speechwriter to the President of the European Parliament. In 2023, Alison self-published a collection of multilingual poetry: Balance – in mind, in body, in soul. The first edition was sold out within weeks and Alison has been giving poetry readings in Brussels, Dublin, Connemara, and France.
Her multilingual poetry collection is a journey on a tight-rope in search of balance: in mind, in body, in soul. Accompanyied by photography from award-winning photographer Sean Hayes, Alison Mooney’s book is graphically built like an art triptych. On one side, poems of grief, on the other poems of healing and suspended in the centre a speech on finding balance. 
You can listen to Alison's prize-winning motivational speech here.
Here, you can listen to Alison reading her poem Beyond You, from her collection.