Layla Benitez-James is a 2022 NEA fellow in translation and the author of God Suspected My Heart Was a Geode but He Had to Make Sure, selected by Major Jackson for Cave Canem’s 2017 Toi Derricotte & Cornelius Eady Chapbook Prize and published by Jai-Alai Books in Miami. Layla has served as the Director of Literary Outreach for the Unamuno Author Series in Madrid and is the editor of its poetry festival anthology, Desperate Literature. Poems and essays can be found at Black Femme Collective, Virginia Quarterly Review, Latino Book Review, Poetry London, Acentos Review, Hinchas de Poesia. Audio essays about translation are available at Asymptote Journal and book reviews of contemporary poetry collections can be found at Poetry Foundation's Harriet Books.