Woven Voices: Three Generations of Puertorriquena Poets Look at Their American Lives

ANITA VELEZ-MITCHELL is a poet, writer, and performer. During the 1950s and '60s, she performed on The Ed Sullivan Show, in Carnegie Hall, in night clubs as a solo artist, and on tour throughout the United States with Marina Svetlova for Columbia Concerts. In the fifties, she formed The Anita Velez Dancers, with choreography by Herbert Ross, and toured the Hilton Hotel chain from Puerto Rico, Santo Domingo, and Cuba to the United States and Canada. Her dance career culminated in 1963 as Anita in West Side Story, returning in 1972 as dance coach for the Lincoln Center revival. She has acted in numerous plays, from Michael Todd's 1944 Broadway production of Mexican Hayride to the 2006 world premiere of The Ballad of Eddie and Jo by David Sard (directed by Lorca Peress at the Hudson Guild Theatre). Her awards include: Puerto Rico's Julia de Burgos Poetry Prize for her bilingual, book-length poem, Primavida: Calendar of Love (1986, Mairena Press); Association of Puerto Rican Writers and Poets Award; University Press Award; Prince of Asturias Award for Belles Lettres; Partners in Education Award; Center of Ibero-American Poets and Writers awards in four separate genres (short story, poetry, essay, and drama); Isaac Perez Award (1994); Thanks Be To Grandmother Winifred Foundation Grant for her short film on Julia de Burgos; "2000 Woman of the Year Award" from the National Conference of Puerto Rican Women in the USA. Her published work in literary magazines and anthologies includes bilingual poems, short stories, plays, essays, and translations, her novella Loco de Amor: A Vieques Tale (2006, published by the Committee for the Puerto Rican Day Parade and given to 500 participants). A production of her play A Newyorican Tale premiered for Danisarte at Julia de Burgos Center in 2009. She is the subject of two documentary films, Anita Vélez: Dancing Through Life and No Brief Candle. She received a Proclamation, Anita Vélez-Mitchell Day, from New York City (2006), and has addressed the United Nations General Assembly on behalf of Vieques, Puerto Rico In 2010 she received the Outstanding Women Award from El Diario newspaper.

GLORIA VANDO was born in New York City-the first member of her family to be born stateside-and educated there and in Amsterdam, Paris, and Texas. Her first book of poems, Promesas: Geography of the Impossible Arte Publico Press), won the Thorpe Menn Book Award and was a finalist for the Walt Whitman Award. Her latest book, Shadows & Supposes (Arte Público Press), won the Alice Fay Di Castagnola Award and the Latino Literary Hall of Fame's Poetry Book Award. Her poems have appeared in many magazines and anthologies, and on the Grammy-nominated Poetry on Record: 98 Poets Read Their Work 1888-2006. She is the recipient of the 2009 Poetry Award from El Instituto de Puerto Rico, NY; the first Kansas Arts Commission Poetry Fellowship; two Billee Murray Denny Prizes; a River Styx International Poetry Award; and others. She is publisher and editor of Helicon Nine Editions, for which she received the CLMP Editor's Grant and the Governor's Arts Award (Kansas).She is also a contributing editor to the North American Review. In 1992 she and her husband, Bill Hickok, founded The Writers Place, a literary center, library, and art gallery in Kansas City, Missouri

ANIKA PARIS was born in Corpus Christi, Texas, and has been playing piano, writing songs, and singing and performing since the age of seven. She blames her muse on the nurturing environment she had growing up with a symphonic conductor father and a poet mother. "I am literally a hybrid of the two, but my brother and sister told me I was the milkman's kid!" As a singer/songwriter, Anika is the recipient of ASCAP's Abe Oleman Scholarship (Songwriters Hall of Fame). Her songs are published with Universal Polygram and Warner Chappell, and featured in major motion pictures and on soundtracks. She has released three solo CDs, is the only female composer for WB Telepictures with songs on such popular shows as Ellen DeGeneres, TMZ, Oprah, American Idol, Sex in the City and many more. She has been a musical guest on Late Night's Craig Kilborn, Latin Explosion (Christina Aguilera & Ricky Martin), toured the U.S., performed for the Royal Princess of Thailand, and had the great honor of sharing the stage with legendary Stevie Wonder, John Legend and John Mayer in a benefit concert. Anika has recently composed the score for the Off-Broadway production, The Judas Tree, and with writing partner Dean Landon, the Taíno musical drama, Temple of the Souls, which premiered in NYC in 2012. She has taught performance and songwriting at Musicians Institute in Los Angeles the past ten years and her book, Making Your Mark in Music: Stage Performance Secrets, is forthcoming from Hal Leonard. As a poet her work has appeared in The Kansas City Star, Chance of a Ghost (Helicon Nine Editions), Poetic Voices Without Borders II (Gival Press), Soft Blow Poetry, Spillway, The Mom Egg (Half Shell Press), and others