margins…Critics Page Conversation

C.J. Alvarez is an environmental historian teaching at the University of Texas at Austin who writes about deserts, the built environment, and the US-Mexico border.

Priscilla Solis Ybarra is a writer and a professor at the University of North Texas, and she enjoys walking around.

Ashton Thornhill is a photographer and emeritus faculty member at Texas Tech University who is “actively engaged in creating work that shares the magic and beauty of the Southwest.”

María Sánchez is a Spanish veterinarian and writer; her book Land of Women was published by Trinity University Press in 2022.

Danielle Demetria East is an interdisciplinary artist working in mixed media collage, installations, and poetry. She is Executive Director of East Lubbock Art House, a community-based nonprofit organization striving to make art accessible for all and to create an autonomous, beautiful, and sustainable community of diverse creators and change-makers.

Curtis Bauer is the author of three poetry collections, most recently American Selfie (Barrow Street Press, 2019), available in Spanish as Selfi Americano (Vaso Roto Ediciones, 2022). He is also a translator of poetry and prose from the Spanish: his publications include Land of Women, by María Sánchez (Trinity University Press, 2022) and Image of Absence, by Jeannette L. Clariond (The Word Works Press, 2018), which won the International Latino Book Award for “Best Nonfiction Book Translation from Spanish to English.” Curtis has given readings, lectures and taught workshops in Spanish and English nationally and internationally. He is the publisher and editor of Q Avenue Press Chapbooks and the Translations Editor for The Common. He divides his time between Spain and Texas.

Rafael B. Duran is principal at Z4Z4-Z4A. Native from Madrid Spain, he is Associate Professor and Director of Undergraduate Architecture at the Hines College of Architecture and Design at the University of UH. His works on practice and theory of architecture spans the fields of material thinking. His PhD explores the idea of air in the context of design practices.

Idoia Elola is a professor of Spanish and Applied Linguistics at Texas Tech University and divides her time between Spain and Texas. Dr. Elola also has several editorial positions. Since 2020, she is the Editor-in-Chief of System is also, since 2011, a Board editorial member at RESLA. Her work has been published nationally and internationally in journals such as Journal of Second Language Writing and Hispania, among others. Her co-authored book, L2 Digital Writing, with her long-time colleague and friend, Dr. Ana Oskoz, is available from Equinox Press.

Susan Larson is a Texas Tech University professor of Spanish and amateur geographer based in Lubbock, Texas

Kenton T. Wilkinson is Regents Professor and Director of the Thomas Jay Harris Institute for Hispanic & International Communication in the College of Media & Communication at Texas Tech University. Wilkinson’s research interests include international communication, U.S. Hispanic/Latinx-oriented media and health communication. He is currently part of a research project funded by the Knight Foundation that is researching and addressing the circulation of disinformation about health issues among Hispanic/Latinx populations living on the South Plains of Texas. His book, Spanish-Language Television in the United States: Fifty Years of Development, was published by Routledge in 2016.

Chris Taylor was born in West Germany, raised in Southwest Florida waters, and lives in the arid American Southwest. An architect, educator, and director of Land Arts of the American West at Texas Tech University, Taylor is deeply committed to the intersection of human construction and the evolving nature of the planet. Terminal Lake Exploration Platform, created with support from the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts, continues to facilitate visual and performative research within under-examined basins and internal aquatic fringes. Taylor studied architecture at the University of Florida and the Graduate School of Design at Harvard and is a member of the Lubbock Scapes Collective.