Erika Said (tr. Laura Chalar)


Erika-Said

Erika Said was born in Ciudad Madero, México. She crossed the border through Ciudad Juárez-El Paso and considers herself a Texan. Erika wrote the poetry collection iPoems: Poemas en shuffle (El Humo, 2014) and co-authored Fuego del aire (Bookanero Ediciones, 2017). She is also the author of two bilingual children’s books with Arte Público Press. Her poetry, short stories, and non-fiction has been published in magazines, anthologies, and academic journals in México and the United States. She is a doctoral candidate of the Spanish Creative Writing program at the University of Houston, where she works as a Research Assistant, writes a novel, and raises her toddler daughter.

Laura Chalar is a lawyer, writer, and translator from Uruguay. Her latest work in Spanish is the poetry collection Fin de la tarde (Sigamos Enamoradas, 2024). Her latest poetry collections in English are Riversent (Coal City Press, 2022), Unlearning (Coal City Press, 2017), Our Lady of Obligations (The Lune, 2017), as well as the short story collection The Guardian Angel of Lawyers (The Roundabout Press, 2018). She has written children’s books and has also edited the poetry anthology Touching the Light of Day: Six Uruguayan Poets (Veliz Books, 2016) and coedited the anthology Trusting on the Wide Air: Poems of Uruguay (Lavender Ink Press, 2019). Chalar, who is also a Pushcart Prize nominee, has translated literature from and into English and Spanish, as well as from the French, Italian and Portuguese.