Poet Community Leaders: A Letras Latinas Reading & Discussion

Friday, March 6, 10:35 a.m. to 11:50 a.m. ET

Ballroom II, Baltimore Convention Center, Level 400

When you are active in your local literary community, how do you carve out time to maintain a writing practice? After reading from their work, the poet laureate of Wisconsin, the cofounder of a vibrant reading series in Philadelphia, and the executive director of a community-based literary organization in California will share insights on the challenges of balancing their artistic practice while also serving their local communities.

Panelist Bios:

Brenda Cárdenas, Wisconsin Poet Laureate (2025–2027), is the author of Trace (Red Hen Press), winner of the 2023 Society of Midland Authors Award for Poetry and silver winner of Foreword Review’s Indie Poetry Prize; Boomerang (Bilingual Press); and three chapbooks. She also coedited Resist Much/Obey Little: Inaugural Poems to the Resistance and Between the Heart and the Land: Latina Poets in the Midwest. Cárdenas’s poems have been widely published in journals such as Poetry, The American Poetry Review, and Prairie Schooner. She is Professor Emerita of English at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee.

Cloud Delfina Cardona is an artist, writer, and book cover designer from San Antonio, Texas. She is the author of What Remains, winner of the 2020 Host Publications Chapbook Prize, and the past is a jean jacket, winner of the Hub City Press BIPOC Poetry Series. Cardona is the cofounder of Infrarrealista Review, a nonprofit that publishes Texan writers. She is an associate at Letras Latinas.

 

Karla Cordero is the author of How to Pull Apart the Earth, winner of the San Diego Book Award and finalist for the International Latino Book Award. Her work has been featured by NPR, the Academy of American Poets, The Oprah Magazine, Split This Rock, PANK, and The BreakBeat Poets Vol. 4: LatiNext, among other publications. She is a recipient of the COURAGE to WRITE grant from the de Groot Foundation and a California Arts Fellowship. She currently serves as executive director of Glassless Minds, a nonprofit arts organization, and teaches creative writing at MiraCosta College.



Raina J. León, PhD is Black, Afro-Boricua, and from Philadelphia and a member of Cave Canem, CantoMundo, and Macondo. She is the author of four books of poetry, including black god mother this body, and two chapbooks. She is a founding editor of The Acentos Review, professor emerita at Saint Mary’s College of California, and creative writing faculty at Stonecoast MFA. She cofounded the Wild Indigo Reading Series in Philadelphia and the Esperimento Sul Respiro residency program in Italy. Through creative archival research, she is writing the story of Doris Rheubottom, Blue Streak of Harlem.