Julieta Arévalo
She was born in Mexico City. She studied Hispanic Language and Literature at FES Acatlán and also at Mario Bellatin’s Escuela Dinámica de Escritores. She is the author of the short story collection Paraíso y otros cuentos incómodos. Her story Paraíso was adapted into a film by the production company Canana and was also included in the book Satélite, el libro.
She has contributed to both print and electronic magazines, the editorial app Ipstori, as well as short story anthologies such as El Libro Rojo de Bengala, Cuentos de barbarie, and Grietas hacia lo incierto (stories for the second edition of “La escritura de la ausencia,” a digital literature and art event held at the Koubek Center in Miami). With weRstories she publishes her first novel, La residencia (ES).
Martha Barilari
Identified as one of the new national voices in contemporary fiction, she studied Art History and Audiovisual Communication, specializing in professional and contemporary photography, graphic design, layout, and editing.
A self-proclaimed suffering writer and a 24/7 dreamer, she is passionate about reflection, long walks in the woods, books, cinema, and animals. That’s why she lives in the mountains, surrounded by everything she loves—the perfect setting to unleash her imagination and write without pause.
She published her debut novel, Last Night I Dreamed I Was a Flower, in 2022, followed by Life Is the Song of a Bird (2022) and The Weight of Silence (2023). She readily admits that each of her stories carries a great deal of herself—and of life.
Cesar Yamaguchi
He was born in 1995 in Tokyo. He studied Literature at The National University of San Marcos in Lima, Peru, and later completed the Master’s in Creative Writing at the Pompeu Fabra Univesity in Barcelona. He published his first short story collection, Sombras sin cuerpo (Vida Múltiple), in 2021, and in 2025 released his debut novel, eros.exe (Campo Letrado/Zumbayllu).
He has worked writing manga and visual novels. His stories inhabit an uncertain territory between flesh and code, between violence and desire—a lineage that might run from J. G. Ballard to Mariana Enríquez, yet carried by a pulse and an aesthetic entirely his own. Nos he lives in Berlin.
Celina Leone
Born in Valparaíso, Chile, in 1961, Celina Leone has spent over three decades walking the streets of Berlin—a city that was meant to be a stopover on her way back to her Chilean hometown. But life anchored her there: two daughters, an apartment in Rixdorf, and love lost on the corners of Braunschweigerstraße.
Writing, for Celina, is not an act of liberation but one of confinement. It’s a daily ritual of reopening wounds, a self-imposed exile into notebooks filled with stories she never intends to share. Widowed for years, she revisits the notes she and her late husband once used to communicate words they couldn’t say aloud. These pages have become a bridge to his lingering presence, a quiet communion with the past.
Though reluctant to publish, Celina made an exception for her granddaughter, offering her more than distant memories—a legacy of stories to find solace in. From this intention came Los detectives que escuchaban a sus mascotas (ES), a mystery set in Berlin and the first in a trilogy that uncovers the city’s secrets through the eyes of its most curious listeners: animals.
J. A. Menéndez-Conde
He was born in Tlaquepaque, Jalisco, in 1984. Despite having lived between Spain and Germany for more than half of his life and holding two passports, he asserts that his sole nationality is Mexican. He has briefly worked in a myriad of professions: lawyer, call center operator, assistant to visual artists, baker, art handler in contemporary art galleries, and librarian. He holds a degree in Law and Political Science from the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid and began a Master’s in German and European Law at Humboldt University in Berlin, from which he never graduated.
Instead of writing his thesis, he became obsessed with reading and writing short stories. One of these stories received an honorable mention in the IX Bonaventuriano Prize for Poetry and Short Stories. He attended the workshop of the writer Samanta Schweblin for four years. In 2022, he made his debut at the Guadalajara International Book Fair with his first novel, Huesos de Bolsillo (ES). 2024 he is back at the FIL with El último Montano (ES), his second novel.
He shares a flat in Berlin with his wife and pets, where he has learned the challenging art of tolerance and self-preservation. He claims to be much happier when reading than when writing.
Cristina Nessuno
She was born in 1959 in a small village in Italy. She grew up, she said, with the constant wish to leave. At the age of 17, she arrived in Milan, and she never looked back. For more than 30 years she has been an elementary school teacher. In the classroom she realized almost from the beginning that the student, in reality, was herself. The kids reminded her every day of the uniqueness of each human being.
They also made her reflect on her childhood, on the stairs under the porch where she played with her brother with a few cars or a doll… There weren’t many toys in her childhood. Not many laughs either. She says there wasn’t much of anything. But there were stones. It was easy to bring them to life and turn them into witches and heroes. Today, they are the «Squicchi» the protagonists of her fiction trilogy, Olivia e il ladro di cuori (IT).
Carmina Prieto
She was born in Bilbao in 1980, and lived also in Barcelona, Madrid, Hamburg, and Berlin. Trained as a journalist and photographer, she now works as a creative director for projects and communication in Madrid, while also pursuing her passion for photography. She’s writing a lot, she says, from the depths of her being.
It was from those depths that she once decided to publish 100 copies of a little book of mini love and heartbreak stories. Everything was autobiographical.
Her website reveals more than her professional experiences. It hints at who Carmina is, how she speaks, her irony, and what she thinks.
Mamá Manzano was more a necessity than a plan. It’s a subtle book that speaks of many giant things. It’s a metaphor in poetic prose about a woman suffering from Alzheimer’s, a story with an inevitable ending. A beautiful sadness. Underlying is the fact that, even when sick, even when absent, the mother remains the center of the family.
Regarding photography, she is currently experimenting with different types of molds, decomposing foods, animals, and more still lifes. With weRstories, she publishes her first novel, Bizca de pechos (ES). Of course, all from the depths of her being.
Art & Literature Lab + Editorial
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Art & Literature Lab + Editorial 