Barbie Hurtado is deeply committed to cultural organizing and artivism within an inclusive LGBTQ+ framework, believing that art plays a vital role in grassroots activism. They view art and artivism as essential tools for building community and fostering change. In 2017, Barbie co-founded Son Queers, a collective of queer, trans, and non-binary musicians who teach, share, and perform traditional son jarocho music in a welcoming, inclusive space. The collective’s mission is to heal through art and music while resisting the heteronormative and patriarchal norms that have historically shaped the son jarocho tradition.
As both a poet and versadore—a person who composes or performs versos in the Son Jarocho tradition—Barbie’s work has been published in local zines like St. Sucia, Panocha Zine, and That Grey Zine & Literary magazine Voices de la Luna. Their poetry is also set to appear in the forthcoming anthology I Love Us, which will be published by Flowersong Press in the summer of 2025. Barbie
Recently, Barbie wrote and recorded La Morena Trans, a song honoring three Texan trans women activists and their tireless advocacy for the rights of trans, non-binary, and gender-expansive communities. In November 2024, La Morena Trans was featured in San Antonio City Council meetings as part of the City of San Antonio’s Local Music Spotlight Program, showcasing original music from talented San Antonio artists. Barbie is now working on a new EP, set to include five songs focused on themes of LGBTQ+ rights, drag culture, and body love.
Juania Sueños is a Chicanx writer, translator, & retired illegal alien. She was the recipient of numerous DSM5 Codes several years in a row. She co-founded Infrarrealista Review. Her work has appeared in Acentos Review, New York Quarterly, Sybil Journal, The Skink Beat Review, Porter House Review, Nat. Brut, & the Westchester Review. She received an MFA diploma from Texas State, and other boring credentials given to her by institutions. She’s collaborated with Texas After Violence project since 2021 on several projects, including on teaching at the Travis County jail. Her novel in verse Topography of a Borderline Bird is forthcoming from Mouthfeel Press, 2025.
Originally from Galveston, Texas, Lupe Mendez (writer/educator/activist) is the author of Why I Am Like Tequila (Willow Books, 2019), winner of the 2019 John A. Robertson Award for Best First Book of Poetry from the Texas Institute of Letters. Mendez is one of the founders of the Librotraficante Movement and of Tintero Projects, a Texas-based organization that works with emerging Latinx writers and other writers of color within the Gulf Coast Region, with Houston as its hub.
Mendez earned his MFA in poetry from the University of Texas at El Paso. His work has appeared in the Kenyon Review, Gulf Coast Journal, the Texas Review, the Los Angeles Review of Books, Split This Rock, Poetry magazine, and Poem-a-Day from the Academy of American Poets, among others. He has received fellowships from CantoMundo, Macondo, and the Crescendo Literary/Poetry Foundation poetry incubator.
Mendez is the 2022–2023 Texas poet laureate. He lives in Houston, where he has worked as an educator for the last 22 years.
mónica teresa ortiz is a poet born, raised, and based in Texas. they have work published in Scalawag, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Fence, and Hyperallergic. ortiz is formerly a 2022 Texas Folklife Community fellow, a 2021-2022 Freedomways journalist in residence, and a 2021-2022 artist in residence with the University of Texas at Austin’s Planet Texas 2050 initiative. follow them on Twitter @elgallosalvaje.
Reyes Ramirez (he/him) is the 2025 – 2027 Houston Poet Laureate, as well as a writer, educator, curator, translator, and organizer of Mexican and Salvadoran descent. He authored the short story collection The Book of Wanderers (2022), a 2023 Young Lions Fiction Award Finalist, from University of Arizona Press’ Camino del Sol series, the poetry collection El Rey of Gold Teeth (2023) from Hub City Press, a finalist for the 2024 Texas Institute of Letters Award for Best First Book of Poetry, and Cerveza Songs: Houston, TX (2024), a collection of craft beer poetry reviews and photography that is an honor-winner for the Fred Whitehead Award for Best Design of a Trade Book from the Texas Institute of Letters. His latest curatorial project, The Houston Artist Speaks Through Grids, explores the use of grids in contemporary Houston art, literature, history, and politics. See a full list of Reyes’ fellowships, honors, contests & prizes on his website.
Violeta Garza (she / they / ella) is a classic middle child in a family of Mexican immigrants. She wrote her first bilingual poem in 5th grade for a handmade Mother’s Day card. These days, they write about exploring the magic of matrilineal lines, finding home in oneself, and the subtle humor in living authentically. She lives a sweet, queer life in Yanawana (San Antonio, Texas), with her partner and an adequate number of potted plants.