Other Translation Events

T131. Electric Conduit: Poetics, Translation & the Digital Age
Moderator: Mathew Timmons, Presenters: Omar Pimienta, David Shook, Alan Sobrino, Alana Levinson  
Room 513, Level Two, Los Angeles Convention Center

In an era of digital glut, translation offers an engaging experience across cultures by literally making us think in another’s language and syntax. This panel explores translation as an art, focusing on the translator’s choices as a pathway through cultural difference and an opportunity to create new connections. Panelists will discuss balancing form and content, the cultural and political implications of translation, and how to ensure translation remains viable in the digital age.

T145. Debunking Myths Around Getting Started in Translation, Sponsored by ALTA
Moderator: Amanda L. Andrei, Presenters: Diana Arterian, KB Thors, Elisa Wouk Almino, Sawako Nakayasu
Room 405, Level Two, Los Angeles Convention Center

What is literary translation? How does one begin? For the uninitiated, the monolingual, and the curious, translation can feel dauntingly niche. Yet it is a vital and enriching practice with the potential to connect people across the globe. In this panel, we will share our journeys of translating prose, poetry, and drama, from finding that first text to publication. We will debunk myths surrounding the craft and provide insights into how to responsibly and ethically begin translating.

T146. Breaking Walls: Heirs of Angel Island Write Against the Anti-Chinese West
Moderator: Jeffrey Thomas Leong, Presenters: Teow Lim Goh, Claire Hong, Tom Lin, Paisley Rekdal
Room 406AB, Level Two, Los Angeles Convention Center

Against the legacy of the Chinese Exclusion Act, which set the xenophobic tone of current US immigration policy, and the harsh detentions at Angel Island, five writers of Chinese descent grapple with personal and collective history. From different generational stances as immigrants and mixed-race persons, they employ multiple genres—poetry, fiction, memoir, essay, and translation—to interrogate injustice. They’ll discuss strategies for subverting racial tropes and engaging lyric language to true a past.

T180. A Singing Wound: Poetry of the Ukrainian Diaspora Since 2014
Room 410, Level Two, Los Angeles Convention Center
Moderator: Olga Livshin, Presenters: Judith Baumel, Valya Dudycz Lupescu, Julia Kolchinsky Dasbach, Luisa Muradyan

Descendants of those who left Ukraine in the middle of traumatic events exist in between: one foot in our current home, and one foot in the ancestral home. These writers and translators speak to the trauma of displacement, identity, and cultural fragmentation due to ongoing war. What language, imagery, and literary traditions help speak the unsayable? How does the multilingual Ukrainian diaspora speak? What can we do as poets, writers, essayists, and translators to bridge, connect, and heal?

T187. Poetry in Translation: Satisfactions & Discontents
Moderator: Fatemeh Shams, Presenters: Amir Ahmadi Arian, Ahmad Almallah, Armen Davoudian, Huda Fakhreddine
Room 513, Level Two, Los Angeles Convention Center

This panel brings together writers/translators from Iranian, Lebanese, Palestinian, and Armenian backgrounds, all living in the American diaspora, and writing in their native tongues and in English. As poets, novelists, and literary scholars, the panelists tackle a wide array of issues, including linguistic transgressions, gains and losses, dual identities, and politics of translation at times of calamity.

T238. On Translating Environmental Literature, Sponsored by ALTA
Moderator: Kathleen Maris Paltrineri, Presenters: Johanna Domokos, Eirill Falck, Jennifer Kwon Dobbs, Saskia Vogel
Room 410, Level Two, Los Angeles Convention Center

This panel brings together four translators to discuss the translation of environmental literature. We are interested in exploring the range of tasks and challenges that come with translating environmental literature—from needing specific ecological vocabularies to unpacking theoretical frameworks, and from exploring craft and formal demands to contextualizing works within their sociopolitical histories, including Indigenous rights movements.

Offsite Translator Meetup with ALTA

Location: Native Son LA, 832 S. Olive St, Los Angeles, CA 90014
Cost: Free, food and drink available for purchase
Event URL: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/offsite-translator-meetup-with-alta-tickets-1236466858659?aff=oddtdtcreator

Join ALTA for an informal translator meetup at Native Son LA, 0.7 miles from the Convention Center. Food and drink available for purchase.

Health & Safety Information:
Access info: Native Son LA is street level, that is all one level. We have an ADA height both for easy access for a wheelchair, along with a bar top side as well. Both bathrooms also have a large stall to be accessible for everyone.

Contact: Kelsi Vanada
Organization: American Literary Translators Association (ALTA)

Reading with Veliz Books, co.im.press, Eulalia Books, Carrion Bloom Books

Location: Audio Graph Beer Co. 1203 S Olive St, Los Angeles, CA 90015
Cost: Free

Join us for a dynamic and varied reading with authors, poets, and translators from Veliz Books, co.im.press, Eulalia Books, Carrion Bloom Books.

Contact Email: Laura Cesarco Eglin

Print IS Dead: A Small Press Reading

Location: Angel City Brewery, 216 S Alameda St, Los Angeles, CA 90012
Cost: Free

A small press reading hosted by: Fine Print Press, Tilted House, Annulet, Eulalia, Carrion Bloom, and Send Me Press. Readings by: Skye Jackson, Janaka Stucky, Gina Tron, Paul Cunningham, Kathrine Hedeen, Dylan Krieger, Tasia Trevino, Kelly Hoffer, Angie Lee, Ian U Lockaby, Jack Jung, Carlene Kucharczyk, Elizabeth Hall, Caleb Beissert, Gion Davis, Karla Lamb, Nellie Papsdorf, Aditi Machado, Monroe Lawrence, Timmy Straw, Adam Strauss, Cat Ingrid Leeches, Hannah V Warren, Cameron Lovejoy, Kelsi Vanada, Talin Tahajian, and Inna Krasnoper.

Contact Email: Requires JavaScript

F160. The Translator’s Note: Bridging Linguistic & Cultural Chasms, Sponsored by ALTA
Moderator: Blas Falconer, Presenters: Sandra Alcosser, Nancy Naomi Carlson, Wayne Miller, Armen Davoudian
Room 514, Level Two, Los Angeles Convention Center

The Translator’s Note is an indispensable companion to poetry in translation, acquainting readers with new poets, helping editors to evaluate poems, positioning a poet’s significance within a literary landscape, defining challenges in a particular piece, and more. Translating from Albanian, French, Persian, Portuguese, and Spanish, our panelists will address how the Translator’s Note bridges linguistic and cultural chasms while fostering an understanding and appreciation for diverse voices.

F178. Beyond Translation: Two Writers, Two Languages
Moderator: S.L. (Sandi) Wisenberg, Presenters: Silvia Goldman, Mary Hawley, Michael Warr, Chun Yu
Room 407, Level Two, Los Angeles Convention Center

A community workshop for African American and Chinese writers. An exchange between two bilingual poets, one American, one Uruguayan born, who translate and respond to one another’s poems with more poems. A collaboration between a French professor and a creative writer based on prison letters written by a female Resistance fighter. We describe our experiences, projects, and our processes in creating our own new work, and teaching others to create new work.

F182. Of Two Minds: Cultivating a Liminal Space of Poetry & Translation
Moderator: Kristin Dykstra, Presenters: Daniel Borzutzky, Laura Cesarco Eglin, Aaron Coleman, Vivek Narayanan
Room 410, Level Two, Los Angeles Convention Center

In this panel, composed of poets who are also translators, we explore how we shift through varied personas, both when we write poetry and when we translate. Does it change or expand our creativity as we are merging or moving between these personas? Does modeling the composition of poetry on translation—or vice versa—make deeper or more distinctive work possible? Can working at the intersection between poetry and translation enable us to move away from a dependence on “originality”?

F202. Meet Me Halfway: On Writing Other Cultures & Avoiding Self-Exoticization
Moderator: Dalia Azim, Presenters: Suchitra Gururaj, Alejandro Puyana, Chaitali Sen, Jenny Tinghui Zhang
Room 403A, Level Two, Los Angeles Convention Center

This panel will feature writers from historically marginalized groups whose work grapples with how to write for an American/Western audience. We celebrate bringing our cultures to life on the page, while assuming a diverse readership with varying degrees of knowledge of the worlds we build. When does cultural translation through stories tip toward self-exoticization? This panel discussion will explore the complexity of writing culturally diverse stories for American publishers.

F205. Poetry at Large: The Joys & Perils of Translating Long Poems, Sponsored by ALTA
Moderator: Derick Mattern, Presenters: Edith Adams, Conor Bracken, Katherine M. Hedeen, Mira Rosenthal
Room 405, Level Two, Los Angeles Convention Center

From Paterson to Omeros, from The Descent of Alette to Drafts, American poetry readers are all too familiar with long poems and their critical weight. Although long poems in translation have long been neglected in English, publishers have lately shown a resurgence of interest. This panel assembles a group of translators to discuss the joys and perils of their own work amid a recent slate of book-length poetic projects appearing for the first time in English.

F219. Around the World: Incorporating Translation into a Creative Writing Class
Moderator: Wendy Chen, Presenters: Cindy Juyoung Ok, Maryam Ala Amjadi, Rohan Chhetri, Takami Nieda
Room 514, Level Two, Los Angeles Convention Center

Translations offer students new and exciting ways to engage with literature from around the world and incorporate diverse perspectives into the classroom. How can educators initiate and introduce conversations on translations with intention? What best practices should educators consider when crafting assignments on translation? In this session, panelists discuss inclusive strategies for bringing the art and study of translations into a creative writing class.

There’s No Place Like . . . A reading with Veliz Books, Parlor Press, Dzanc, and Baobab Press

Location: Boomtown Brewery, 700 Jackson St, Los Angeles, CA 90012
Cost: Free
Event URL: https://www.facebook.com/events/1000068615346241

An Offsite Reading with readers from: Veliz Books – Tina Cane, Kristin Dykstra, Anu Kandikuppa, & Seth Michelson Parlor Press – Elizabeth Robinson, Peter Kline, & Laura Wetherington Dzanc – Jonathan Fink, Tara Isabel Zambrano, & Emma Smith-Stevens Baobab Press – Dani Putney, Russell Persson, & Karen An-Hwei Lee

Health & Safety Information:
Venue complies with accessability policies. – Masks are always a good idea in crowds. Wear one if it’s your preference. – Tip the bartenders and waitstaff! – Let us all be kind guests for our gracious hosts.

Contact: Laura Cesarco Eglin
Organization: Veliz Books

Celebrate 2025 Poetry Books from Sixteen Rivers Press

Location: Catcher in the Rye 10550 Riverside Drive Toluca Lake, CA 91602
Cost: Free

Come join us at Catcher in the Rye, a cozy literary-themed pub in Toluca Lake, to celebrate Sixteen Rivers Press’s 2025 publications and 25 years of publishing the poetic voices of Northern California. Readers include poets Patrick Cahill, Moira Magneson, Bonnie Wai-Lee Kwong, and translators Nancy J. Morales and Terry Ehret, reading the work of Mexican poet Ulalume Gonzalez de Leon. Special guests of the press will be joining us. Enjoy a sandwich and beverage from Catcher in the Rye’s unique menu. Check at the Sixteen Rivers Book Fair table for transportation recommendations.

Contact: Terry Ehret
Organization: Sixteen Rivers Press

S152. Shaking Up the 3 Percent: Publishing Transnational Genre Lit
Moderator: Neela Banerjee, Presenters: Rakesh Khanna, Jee Koh, Nadine Santoro
Room 410, Level Two, Los Angeles Convention Center

Only 3 percent of books published in the US annually are translated from other languages—limiting the type of literature chosen. These eclectic publishers share what it means to decenter American “literary” sensibilities and make bold choices to acquire genre writing (science fiction, pulp novels, graphic novels, and more) from around the world. Panelists talk about the joys, risks, and challenges of publishing this marginalized lit and its importance in this historic moment of global attention.

S155. When a Book Takes Forever to Write: How to Survive the Process
Moderator: Sabina Murray, Presenters: Shakstri Akella, Gina Apostol, Jeff Parker
Room 502A, Level Two, Los Angeles Convention Center

What happens when writing a book takes much longer than expected? How do you keep on going? Five published writers from a variety of backgrounds (journalism, creative writing, academia) and genres (historical fiction, memoir, short story, novella, translated) will share their experiences with long book projects—some spanning almost three decades—and offer practical advice on how they navigated the process.

S159. Babel at the Table: How to Run a Successful Multilanguage Translation Workshop
Moderator: Angela Pneuman, Presenters: Judy Halebsky, Alana Levinson, Mira Rosenthal
Room 513, Level Two, Los Angeles Convention Center

The multilanguage translation workshop is a seminar in world literature grounded in specificity. The work is to breathe again into a text and let it live again. When teaching translation workshops, we ground the discussion in relation to key theories of praxis while emphasizing the process as a cross-cultural endeavor—or transcreation—that draws attention to the subtleties of language and requires creative experimentation.

S176. “Traduttore, Traditore!”: Poets on Translation
Moderator: John Murillo, Presenters: Shangyang Fang, Forrest Gander, Valzhyna Mort, Mary Jo Bang
Room 407, Level Two, Los Angeles Convention Center

In his 2004 memoir If This Be Treason, translator Gregory Rabassa describes the act of translating, at least in part, as an act of betrayal. Betrayal of language, author, and self. Was he right? If so, is this especially true when translating poems? This panel uses Rabassa’s argument as a jumping-off point to discuss the joys, challenges, and . . . impossibility? . . . of translation. The five poet-translators will be reading from recently published translations from Chinese, Italian, Russian, and Spanish texts.

S182. But It Wasn’t Written in English: Translated Literature in the CW Classroom
Moderator: Bonnie Chau, Presenters: C Dylan Bassett, May-lee Chai, Jennifer Tseng
Room 501ABC, Level Two, Los Angeles Convention Center

What happens when creative writing syllabi include texts not originally written in English? What new dimensions does translated literature add to conversations about writing process, craft, language, and revision? This panel’s writer-teachers discuss the meaningful insights that emerge when questions about translation are invited to the college creative writing classroom. They address concerns about teaching non-English texts, share advice, and reflect on what translation brings to their writing and teaching.

S206. “This Is a Time for Mistral”: Eighty Years Since Gabriela Mistral’s Nobel Prize
Moderator: Emilia Phillips, Presenters: M. Soledad Caballero, Claudia Cabello Hutt, Anna Deeny Morales
Room 409AB, Level Two, Los Angeles Convention Center

Chilean poet Gabriela Mistral (1889–1957) won the Nobel Prize in Literature eighty years ago in 1945, but she remains mostly unread in English. This panel will engage with her rise from a rural educator to a poet, diplomat, and public intellectual; dictatorship propaganda about her and the reclamation of her image; archival evidence of her sexuality; the difficulties and rewards of translating her; and why more English readers—especially those interested in women’s and queer history—should know her.

S240. The Intersection of Language: Translating from the Diaspora, Sponsored by ALTA
Moderator: Wendy Chen, Presenters: Yilin Wang, Stine An, Jack Jung
Room 513, Level Two, Los Angeles Convention Center

What does it mean to be a translator situated in the diaspora, and how does this shape one’s relationship with heritage languages, source literatures, and the act of translation? Join three translators working with Asian languages to discuss their translingual creative practices. They will reflect on how their positionality in the diaspora affects their translation decisions, discuss how their translations and writings intersect, and explore the benefits and joys of working across languages.