Augusto Rodríguez
Born in Guayaquil, Ecuador in 1979, Augusto Rodríguez is a journalist, editor and professor. He runs the Operating Room Editions and the director of the Guayaquil International Poetry Festival Ileana Espinel Cedeño. Twenty of his literary works, ranging from poetry and short stories to essays and novels, have been published in 15 countries, with some poems translated into 14 languages. 

Toshiko Hirata 
Toshiko Hirata  first gained recognition by winning the inaugural Shichōsha New Poet’s Award in 1983. In the following years, she published her debut poetry collection Rakkyō no ongaeshi (Rakkyō Onions Return the Favour) in 1984, The Freedom of Quips (winner of the Shikibu Murasaki Literary Prize), Poetry on the Seventh Day (winner of the Hagiwara Sakutarō Prize for poetry), Terminal (winner of the Doi Bansui Prize for poetry), among others. Apart from poetry, her notable literary works include novels and plays such as Two on Board and Sweet Wounds. In 1999, She participated in a nationwide live poetry improvisation contest held by NHK and defeated the renowned poet Kazuko Shiraishi to become the program’s third champion. Poetry of Day Seven: Selected Poems of Hirata Toshiko, which will be soon published in Taiwan. 

Marwan Makhoul
Marwan Makhoul is a Palestinian poet, born in 1979 in the village of al-Buqei'a, Upper Galilee, to a Palestinian father and a Lebanese mother. He has published works in poetry, prose and drama. His first play, This Isn’t Noah’s Ark, won the best playwright award at The Acre Theatre Festival in 2009. His poetry is often award winning, and the selections have been translated into more than 24 languages. Several of his poems have been set to music, too. During the 2023 Gaza war, a part of his poem became slogans raised by tens of millions of protestors and written on the walls of cities around the world to call for an end to the targeting of civilians.

Stuart LAU Wai-shing
Born and raised in Hong Kong, Stuart Lau Wai-shing received his PhD from the Department of Humanities and Creative Writing of Hong Kong Baptist University. He is a publishing professional and a part-time university lecturer in writing, editing, and publishing. Lau is the author of several prose collections, including The Child Holding a Flower (2007), Obtuse Angle of Wings (2012), and Alpine Forgetting of Shadow (2021), as well as recent poetry collections How Broad Are the Plank Roads of Sunshine (2014), Modest Heat in Fruits (2020), and Window, Pool, Unrippled (2024). In 2021, he was awarded Artist of the Year (Literary Arts) by the Hong Kong Arts Development Council.