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Amarilis Tavárez Vales — Born in Camuy in 1974, Tavárez Vales studied sociology and psychology at UPR Río Piedras and holds a master’s in Women’s and Gender Studies. Her poetry collections include Realid(h)ades, Hastío, and Larga jornada en el trópico, and her work has appeared in numerous anthologies of contemporary Puerto Rican poetry.

 

Francisco Félix Canales (Dalmau) — Born in 1990 in Río Piedras and raised in Carolina, Canales is the author of the poetry collections Sobre los domingos, Salario Mínimo, and Norte Invertido. He holds a master’s in Hispanic Studies from UPR Río Piedras and began doctoral work in Comparative Literature before returning to Puerto Rico.

 

Jesús Colón — Born in Cayey, Puerto Rico in 1901, Colón moved to Brooklyn at sixteen and became known as the “Father of the Nuyorican Movement,” writing about labor, race, and the immigrant experience across decades of journalism and fiction. His best-known work, A Puerto Rican in New York and Other Sketches (1961), is considered one of the first English-language books by a Puerto Rican author about the Puerto Rican experience. Pregones/PRTT’s ensemble production The Red Rosecelebrates his life and works.

 

Jesús Papoleto Meléndez — A founding figure of the Nuyorican poetry movement born in East Harlem, Meléndez helped establish the Nuyorican Poets Café. His play The Junkies Stole the Clock became the first Nuyorican production staged at Joseph Papp’s Public Theater, and his honors include a NYFA fellowship and the Louis Reyes Rivera Lifetime Achievement Award. His credits include Pregones/PRTT’s ensemble production Hey Yo!

 

Judith Ortiz Cofer — Born in Hormigueros, Puerto Rico in 1952 and raised between Puerto Rico and Paterson, New Jersey, Ortiz Cofer became an acclaimed poet, novelist, and essayist writing across cultures, including the 1989 Pulitzer Prize–nominated novel The Line of the Sun. She spent much of her career as a professor of creative writing at the University of Georgia, until her death in 2016. Her award-winning memoir Silent Dancing is the primary source of Pregones/PRTT’s ensemble production The Wedding March.

 

Julia de Burgos — Born in Carolina, Puerto Rico in 1914, de Burgos became one of the island’s most celebrated poets, writing with fierce lyricism about feminism, Afro-Puerto Rican identity, and independence before her death in East Harlem in 1953. Widely regarded as a forebear of the Nuyorican movement, her collected works were translated by the great Jack Agüeros and published in English as Song of the Simple Truth.

 

Luis Negrón — Born in Guayama, Puerto Rico in 1970, Negrón is the author of the acclaimed story collection Mundo Crueland co-editor of Los otros cuerpos, an anthology of queer writing from Puerto Rico and its diaspora. He lives in Santurce, where he has also worked in the community’s queer arts scene, including a founding role in Producciones Mano Santa.

 

Magdalena Gómez — Born in the Bronx in 1953 to a Spanish Romaní father and a Puerto Rican mother, Gómez is a playwright, poet, and social activist who serves as artistic director of Teatro V!da, Springfield’s first Latino-identified theater company. She previously served as Springfield’s Poet Laureate and holds a fellowship from the Academy of American Poets. Her credits include Pregones/PRTT’s ensemble production Dancing In My Cockroach Killers.

 

Manuel Méndez Ballester — Born in Aguadilla in 1909, Méndez Ballester began in theater as an actor before becoming one of Puerto Rico’s foremost 20th-century dramatists, best known for the tragedy Tiempo muerto about sugarcane workers. He later served in Puerto Rico’s House of Representatives while continuing to write across genres including satire, drama, and zarzuela.

 

Mariposa Fernández — A Bronx-born Afro-Puerto Rican poet and performance artist, Fernández explores themes of empowerment, identity, and the Afro-Latina experience, and her work appears in the Norton Anthology of Latino Literature and the Library of America’s Latino Poetry: Places We Call Home. She was named an inaugural Letras Boricua Fellow by the Flamboyan and Mellon Foundations in 2021.

 

Rubén Ramos Colón — Born in Bayamón in 1983, Ramos Colón is a poet, editor, and linguist with several published collections, including Angst, Wéilsong, Ultramar, and La expansión de los cuerpos. He’s currently pursuing doctoral studies in Caribbean linguistics at UPR and writes as a columnist for Claridad.

 

Silvio Rodríguez — Born in San Antonio de los Baños, Cuba in 1946, Rodríguez emerged from the national film institute’s music workshops to become a founding figure of the Nueva Trova movement alongside Pablo Milanés and Noel Nicola. Renowned for his poetic, politically charged songwriting, he is widely considered Cuba’s most influential singer-songwriter and one of Latin America’s greatest.