Maria Baranda was born in Mexico City in 1962. Among her many prizes are two FONCA "young artist" fellowships in poetry, a FONCA / Rockefeller nonfiction fellowship, the National Efrain Huerta Prize, the Aguascalientes National Poetry Prize, the Villa de Madrid Latin American Poetry Prize of Madrid, Spain, and the FILIJ Children's Story Prize. She is the author of more than a dozen books of poetry and eight works of children's literature. Her poems have been translated into English, French, Lithuanian, and German. In the U.S.A., her poems have appeared in Chicago Review, Zoland Poetry, Boston Review, Circumference, Washington Square, and in the anthologies Connecting Lines: New Poetry from Mexico (Sarabande Books) and Reversible Monuments: Contemporary Mexican Poetry (Copper Canyon Press).