Workshop Schedule

This session is for the “translation-curious”: those who are interested in literary translation but would like support for where to start. This session is the place to learn the basics, and to ask all your questions! Participants may submit questions in advance.

Leaders: Allison M. Charette and Archana Madhavan

Allison M. Charette is a literary translator who specializes in bringing French-language fiction from Madagascar into English. She has received an NEA Literary Translation Fellowship, been nominated for the Best of the Net, and been in residence at Art OMI. She also founded both the Emerging Literary Translators’ Network in America (ELTNA.org) and the ALTA Emerging Translator Mentorship Program.

Archana Madhavan is a literary translator from Korean with a day job as an instructional designer in the software industry. Her book-length works include Glory Hole by Kim Hyun (co-translation, 2022) and Roadkill by Amil (2025). In 2022, she was chosen for the American Literary Translators Association (ALTA) Emerging Translator Mentorship Program to translate Lee Jenny’s debut book of poetry 아마도 아프리카. This translation was shortlisted for the Granum Translation Prize in 2023 and won the Malinda A. Markham Translation Prize in 2024. In 2025, it was published under the title Pirowa Padowa from Saturnalia Books.

Session limit: unlimited

This workshop is geared toward intermediate and advanced translators looking for feedback on translations of work by non-contemporary authors, deceased authors, retranslations, etc.

Leader: Bill Johnston

Bill Johnston is a literary translator working from Polish and French. His recent translations include Wiesław Myśliwski’s Needle’s Eye (Archipelago Books 2025), a Financial Times Best Book of the Year; and Great Fear on the Mountain by Swiss modernist Charles Ferdinand Ramuz (Archipelago Books 2024), a finalist for the PEN Translation Prize. His honors include the National Translation Award in Poetry, the Best Translated Book Award, the PEN Translation Prize, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. He currently holds the Michael Henry Heim Chair in Central and East European Letters at Indiana University.

Session limit: 6 [FULL]

This workshop is geared toward intermediate and advanced translators looking for feedback on a tricky section of a prose translation.

Leader: Jon Cho-Polizzi

Jon Cho-Polizzi is an award-winning literary translator and Assistant Professor of German at University of Michigan. He translates both poetry and prose, and his work frequently highlights the idiosyncrasies of transnational authors writing at the intersections of migration and multilingualism.

Session limit: 6 [FULL]

This workshop is geared toward intermediate and advanced translators looking for feedback on a Queer text.

Leader: Achy Obejas

Achy Obejas’ latest translation project is Amadeus, Rita Indiana’s forthcoming novel, out in September 2026. Achy’s most recent book is The Boy Kingdom/El reino de los varones, a bilingual collection of prose poems that offers a meditation on queer motherhood and raising sons. She currently pens the West Coast renters column for the New York Times. A recipient of a USA Artists fellowship, an NEA and a Cintas fellowship, among other awards, she lives in the San Francisco Bay area.

Session limit: 6 [FULL]

This workshop is geared toward beginning translators of poetry looking for feedback on a first or early poetry translation excerpt.

Leader: Mira Rosenthal

Mira Rosenthal is an American poet and translator of Polish-language writers such as Tomasz Różycki, Małgorzata Lebda, and Krystyna Dąbrowska. Her translation of Różycki’s To the Letter (Archipelago Books) won the PEN Award for Poetry in Translation, the Polish Book Institute’s Found in Translation Award for the best translation of 2024, and the AATSEEL Award for Best Literary Translation into English. She is the author of Territorial (Pitt Poetry Series), a finalist for the INDIES Book of the Year award, and The Local World (Kent State), winner of the Wick Poetry Prize. Her honors include a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, a Stegner Fellowship from Stanford University, a Northern California Book Award, and residencies at Hedgebrook, MacDowell, and the Jan Michalski Foundation.

Session limit: 6 [FULL]

This workshop is geared toward intermediate and advanced translators looking for feedback on a tricky section of a poetry translation.

Leader: Kareem James Abu-Zeid

Kareem James Abu-Zeid, PhD, is a translator of poets and novelists from across the Arab world. He has received the Sarah Maguire Prize, PEN Center USA’s translation prize, Poetry Magazine’s translation prize, a Fulbright Fellowship, an NEA grant, and has thrice been a finalist for the PEN America Translation Prize.

Session limit: 6 [FULL]

This workshop is for intermediate and advanced translators looking for feedback on a pitch they are putting together for a prose work. Please submit a one-page pitch document (max 500 words) and an optional sample translation (separate document, 1 page max). More information about the submission will be emailed to participants.

Leader: Janet Hong

Janet Hong is a writer and translator based in Vancouver, Canada. She received the TA First Translation Prize and the LTI Korea Translation Award for her translation of Han Yujoo’s The Impossible Fairy Tale. She’s a two-time winner of the Harvey Award for Best International Book for her translations of Keum Suk Gendry-Kim’s Grass and Yeong-shin Ma’s Moms. Recent translations include Kim Ho-Yeon’s The Second Chance Convenience Store and Hwang Jungeun’s Years and Years. She has been a mentor for ALTA’s Emerging Translator Mentorship Program since 2020.

Session limit: 6 [FULL]

This session is for all those interested in learning how to make a living as a literary translator. Participants may submit questions ahead of time.

Leader: Julia Sanches

Julia Sanches has translated over thirty works of literature from Catalan, Portuguese, and Spanish into English.

Session limit: unlimited

This workshop is for intermediate and advanced translators looking for feedback on a pitch they are putting together for a prose work. Participants will submit a 1-page query letter and a synopsis of no more than 300 words.

Leader: Katie Whittemore

Katie Whittemore translates contemporary Spanish fiction, including works by Sara Mesa, Pilar Adón, Jon Bilbao, Juan Gómez Bárcena, and Aliocha Coll. Her translations have been shortlisted for the Queen Sofía Translation Prize, the National Translation Award, the Spain-USA Foundation Translation Award, and the Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize. She lives in Valencia, Spain.

Session limit: 6 [FULL]

This workshop is for intermediate and advanced translators looking for feedback on tricky passage of a translation that prominently features dialogue and/or speech.

Leader: David M. Smith

David M. Smith translates Norwegian fiction, most recently The Red Handler by Johan Harstad (Open Letter) and The Calf by Leif Høghaug (Fum d’Estampa). He has an MFA in Literary Translation from the University of Iowa.

Session limit: 6 [FULL]

This session is for all those looking for suggestions for how to market and publicize their translations. Participants may submit questions in advance.

Leader: Nick During

Nick During is the Publicity Director at New York Review Books.

Session limit: unlimited

This workshop is geared toward intermediate and advanced translators looking for feedback on an excerpt of a translation of a work for which the source and target cultures are very different.

Leader: Mui Poopoksakul

Mui Poopoksakul is a translator of Thai literature and an attorney. With a special interest in contemporary fiction, she has worked with some of Thailand’s most acclaimed living authors. Her book-length translations include The Understory by Saneh Sangsuk (Peirene Press/Deep Vellum), Bright by Duanwad Pimwana (Two Lines Press), and The Sad Part Was by Prabda Yoon (Tilted Axis Press). Mui is based in Berlin, Germany.

Session limit: 6 [FULL]

This workshop is for intermediate and advanced translators looking for feedback on a pitch they are putting together for a work of poetry. Participants will submit a 1-page query letter and one poem from their sample.

Leader: Robin Myers

Robin Myers is a poet and translator. She won the 2025 National Book Award in Translated Literature for We Are Green and Trembling by Gabriela Cabezón Cámara (New Directions), and was shortlisted for the 2025 National Translation Award in Poetry with The Brush by Eliana Hernández-Pachón (Archipelago Books).

Session limit: 6 [FULL]

This workshop is geared toward beginning translators of prose looking for feedback on a first or early prose translation.

Leader: Sawad Hussain

Sawad Hussain is a PEN Award-winning translator from the Arabic. She has been shortlisted for The Warwick Prize for Women in Translation, the Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize and the National Book Award for Translation, and longlisted for the Moore Prize in Human Rights Writing, among others. A former co-chair of the Translators’ Association in the UK, Sawad has also served as a judge for the Palestine Book Awards and the 2023 National Translation Award. She has run translation workshops under the auspices of Shadow Heroes, Africa Writes, Shubbak Festival, the Yiddish Book Center, the British Library, and the National Centre for Writing. In 2024, she became the first translator-in-residence for Wasafiri, and was the Spring 2025 translator-in-residence at PIIRS, Princeton University.

Session limit: 6 [FULL]