Panamanian poet and radical activist, Diana Morán, created her major works in the tumult of the 1960s and '70s. Despite winning the first Ricardo Miró National Literature Award for poetry, she was forced into exile as an active Marxist by the successive conservative and reformist military coups that overthrew the preceding government in the late '60s. Labeled a criminal reactionary by Torrijos and Noriega, Morán found a permanent home-in-exile in Mexico City, teaching at the Metropolitan Autonomous University. She passed away in 1987; her cremains were secretly scattered into the Panama Canal in 2004.

Panamanian multimedia artist Ash Ponders lives in the Sonoran Desert making visuals for newspapers and art galleries. His recent work has been covered by the New York Times, BBC, CNN and Teen Vogue. In his spare time he translates poems, chases hot air balloons, teaches firearms safety, and tutors adults in both Spanish and English.